972B Poster - 15. Models of human disease
Friday April 08, 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM

Authors:
Mario Cayetano-Velazquez ¹; Irma Dueñas-García ¹; Luis Felipe Santos-Cruz ¹; Laura Castañeda-Partida ¹; Evelyn Hernández-Torres ¹; Elizabeth Soto-López ¹; Daniela Vargas-Sánchez ¹; Nefte Meni Yañez-Mendoza ¹; María Eugenia Heres-Pulido ¹; Noma Velazquez-Ulloa ²

Affiliations:
1) Lab. de Genética Toxicológica, FES Iztacala UNAM. Av. Los Barrios # 1. Los Reyes Iztacala, Tlalnepantla, Estado de México, CP 54090. ; 2) Lewis & Clark College

Keywords:
o. obesity; p. metabolic disorders

Excessive consumption of some macronutrients, such as lipids and carbohydrates can contribute to development of cardiovascular disease, neurodegenerative disease, obesity, and metabolic syndrome, among others. Drosophila melanogaster is an effective model organism to determine the effects of the consumption of hypercaloric diets during development because of the high conservation in the metabolic and signaling pathways between mammals and insects, in which many of the participating genes have orthologs in Drosophila. We evaluated the effect of different diets on survival and negative geotaxis in two Drosophila strains, Canton-S (CS, wildtype), and Oregon R(R)-flare (OR), which have increased Cyp450 enzyme levels and have been shown to be insecticide resistant. Larvae from these fly strains fed on either a Normal Diet (ND), a High Fructose Diet (FR; 17% fructose), a High Palmitic Acid Diet (AP, 3.2% palmitic acid), or a Mixed Diet (MX, 5% FR + 1% AP) until pupation. For the survival assays, ten recently emerged adult flies per vial, per treatment, per sex, per fly strain, were transferred to vials with ND food. Three vials per condition were collected per experiment, and five independent experiments were conducted. Flies were transferred to new vials and the number of survivors per vial was counted every 3 days for 54 days. To determine effects on survival, we estimated mean survival, time to 50% survival, maximum survival and performed a Kaplan-Meier survival analysis. We found that survival was significantly decreased by the hypercaloric diets. In the CS flies, all 3 high calorie diets decreased survival, while OR flies had decreased survival with the FR and AP diets, but not in the MX diet. In addition, the magnitude of the effect of the diets on survival was greater in the CS strain than in the OR strain, which suggests that increased P450 enzyme levels may confer protection. Next, we evaluated the effect of the different diets on negative geotaxis. For this assay, ten recently emerged flies per vial, per treatment, per sex, per fly strain, were transferred to vials and tested on a climbing assay. CS flies from the high calorie FR diet climbed the most, while OR flies that consumed the ND climbed the least. The high calorie treatments affect female and male flies of the CS and OR fly strains differently. We also noticed differences between these two strains, which support an involvement of the xenobiotic metabolism in the effects of high caloric diets