Meeting Abstract

P3.89  Monday, Jan. 6 15:30  Age-related change in cold stress tolerance in Drosophila melanogaster EVERMAN, ER*; MORGAN, TJ; Kansas State University; Kansas State University evermane@ksu.edu

Organisms occur in environments that vary spatially and temporally throughout their lifespans. Resistance to cold stress is one important fitness trait that is expected to decline through ontogeny; however this general expectation is based on the response of a small number of genotypes of Drosophila melanogaster. To further characterize this change in cold stress resistance, we performed Rapid-Cold Hardening (RCH) screens on 49 genetically distinct lines of the Drosophila melanogaster Genetic Reference Panel (DGRP) at early (5-7 days) and late (20-22 days) age. Consistent with previous investigations of RCH and the DGRP lines, we observed a wide range of variation between lines at each age point. In addition, cold stress resistance differs significantly (p < 0.05) between early and late aged flies. However, we observed that the direction of the change in expression of cold stress resistance varies among lines as well, with several lines increasing in cold stress resistance as they age. The difference in cold resistance between ages combined with the difference in direction of the change between lines suggests that cold stress resistance as characterized by RCH screens is influenced by a number of complex genetic interactions. To fully characterize these interactions, we will continue screening the remaining 143 lines in the DGRP and use association mapping to isolate regions of the genome that are likely tied to the age-related change in cold stress tolerance.