Female-biased upregulation of insulin pathway activity mediates the sex difference in Drosophila body size plasticity
- The University of British Columbia, Canada
- Universite Nice Sophia Antipolis, France
- Imperial College London, United Kingdom
Abstract
Nutrient-dependent body size plasticity differs between the sexes in most species, including mammals. Previous work in Drosophila showed that body size plasticity was higher in females, yet the mechanisms underlying increased female body size plasticity remain unclear. Here, we discover that a protein-rich diet augments body size in females and not males because of a female-biased increase in activity of the conserved insulin/insulin-like growth factor signaling pathway (IIS). This sex-biased upregulation of IIS activity was triggered by a diet-induced increase in stunted mRNA in females, and required Drosophila insulin-like peptide 2, illuminating new sex-specific roles for these genes. Importantly, we show that sex determination gene transformer promotes the diet-induced increase in stunted mRNA via transcriptional coactivator Spargel to regulate the male-female difference in body size plasticity. Together, these findings provide vital insight into conserved mechanisms underlying the sex difference in nutrient-dependent body size plasticity.
Data availability
All data generated in this study are provided in supplementary file 2. All statistical tests and p-values are listed in supplementary file 1. Exact diets used in this study are described in supplementary file 3 for ease of replication. All genotypes used in this study are listed in supplementary file 4. A complete list of primers used in this study is provided in supplementary file 5
Article and author information
Author details
Elizabeth J Rideout
Funding
Canadian Institutes of Health Research (PJT-153072)
- Elizabeth J Rideout
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (RGPIN-2016-04249)
- Elizabeth J Rideout
Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research (16876)
- Elizabeth J Rideout
Canada Foundation for Innovation (JELF-34879)
- Elizabeth J Rideout
H2020 European Research Council (ERCAdG787470)
- Irene Miguel-Aliaga
European Molecular Biology Organization (aALTF782-2015)
- Bruno Hudry
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Reviewing Editor
- Jiwon Shim, Hanyang University, Republic of Korea
Version history
- Received: April 28, 2020
- Accepted: January 11, 2021
- Accepted Manuscript published: January 15, 2021 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: February 5, 2021 (version 2)
Copyright
© 2021, Millington et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Female-biased upregulation of insulin pathway activity mediates the sex difference in Drosophila body size plasticity
eLife 10:e58341.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.58341
Further reading
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