Meeting Abstract

P3.11  Wednesday, Jan. 6  Microarray analyses of larval fat body in desiccation-selected Drosophila melanogaster MARLON, A.J.*; GEFEN, E.; RAJPUROHIT, S.; GIBBS, A.G.; Univ. of Nevada, Las Vegas; Haifa University – Oranim; Univ. of Nevada, Las Vegas; Univ. of Nevada, Las Vegas anthonyj.marlon@gmail.com

Drosophila populations that have been selected for adult desiccation resistance exhibit a longer third-instar feeding period than non-selected controls. Selected flies pupariate 8 hours later than controls and eclose with greater energy stores, water content and desiccation resistance. To investigate transcriptome differences associated with delayed development, we performed microarray gene expression profiling of larval fat body collected at 88, 96, 112 and 120 hr stages in selected and control populations. We identified gene sets that were differentially expressed at each time point, as these are prime candidates for genes responding to stress selection. Genes involved in amino acid and carbon metabolism were significantly overrepresented, as were protein synthetic genes. An analysis using DAVID (Database for Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery) indicated greater differences at 120 hr, when selected lines were still feeding, but controls had begun the wandering phase. We are now performing metabolite assays to test hypotheses generated from our microarray results. Our main focus will be to find associations between genes expressed under physiologically stressful conditions and basic metabolic processes involved therein. Supported by NSF award 0719591 to D. K. Hoshizaki and A. G. Gibbs.