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Comparative Study
. 2014 Jul 1;307(1):R82-92.
doi: 10.1152/ajpregu.00003.2014. Epub 2014 Apr 30.

Altering the sex determination pathway in Drosophila fat body modifies sex-specific stress responses

Kathryn J Argue  1 , Wendi S Neckameyer  2
Affiliations
Comparative Study

Altering the sex determination pathway in Drosophila fat body modifies sex-specific stress responses

Kathryn J Argue et al. Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol. .

Abstract

The stress response in Drosophila melanogaster reveals sex differences in behavior, similar to what has been observed in mammals. However, unlike mammals, the sex determination pathway in Drosophila is well established, making this an ideal system to identify factors involved in the modulation of sex-specific responses to stress. In this study, we show that the Drosophila fat body, which has been shown to be important for energy homeostasis and sex determination, is a dynamic tissue that is altered in response to stress in a sex and time-dependent manner. We manipulated the sex determination pathway in the fat body via targeted expression of transformer and transformer-2 and analyzed these animals for changes in their response to stress. In the majority of cases, manipulation of transformer or transformer-2 was able to change the physiological output in response to starvation and oxidative stress to that of the opposite sex. Our data also uncover the possibility of additional downstream targets for transformer and transformer-2 that are separate from the sex determination pathway and can influence behavioral and physiological responses.

Keywords: behavior; sex differences; stress; transformer; transformer-2.

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Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Fat body surrounding the adult brain could respond to stress in a sex- and time-dependent manner. A–D: fluorescently labeled fat body surrounding the brain for 1-day-old (A and B) and 5-day-old (C and D) female (A and C) and males (B and D). E–H: Cg-Gal4>UAS-β-galactosidase animals were exposed to starvation or paraquat for 24 h either immediately after eclosion (1 day, E and F) or 5 days posteclosion (G and H). A574 was determined in crude protein from head extracts for females (E and G) and males (B and H) after a 20-min incubation in 1 mM chlorophenol red-β-d-galactoparanaside. *P < 0.05, n = 9–10, ANOVA with Dunnett's post test.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Altering the sex of the fat body reversed heart rate to that of the opposite sex after starvation stress. Sexually immature Cg-Gal4>w1118, Cg-Gal4>traF, and Cg-Gal4>tra2IR males and females were collected immediately after eclosion and assayed for heart rate in response to a 24-h exposure to starvation stress. Heart rate was assessed for 5 intervals of 15 s each. Two-way ANOVAs (genotype × stress), n = 40.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
Altering the sex of the fat body partially reversed time spent highly mobile to that of the opposite sex after starvation stress. Sexually mature Cg-Gal4>w1118, Cg-Gal4>traF, and Cg-Gal4>tra2IR males and females were collected immediately after eclosion, aged for 5 days, and assayed for time spent highly mobile during exploratory locomotion in response to starvation stress. Two-way ANOVAs (genotype × stress), n = 39–45.
Fig. 4.
Fig. 4.
Analysis of total distance moved following manipulation of the sex determination pathway showed a novel response, unlike controls of either sex. Sexually immature Cg-Gal4>w1118 males and females and Cg-Gal4>traF males and Cg-Gal4>tra2IR females were collected immediately after eclosion and assayed for total distance moved during exploratory locomotion in response to starvation. Statistical results are shown in the table. Two-way ANOVAs (genotype × stress), n = 45.
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