School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, 3800, Australia.
Department of Plant and Organismal Biology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Sci Rep. 2017 Feb 9;7:42009. doi: 10.1038/srep42009.
Mitochondrial genetic variation shapes the expression of life-history traits associated with reproduction, development and survival, and has also been associated with the prevalence and progression of infectious bacteria and viruses in humans. The breadth of these effects on multifaceted components of health, and their link to disease susceptibility, led us to test whether variation across mitochondrial haplotypes affected reproductive success following an immune challenge in the form of a non-infectious pathogen. We test this, by challenging male and female fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster), harbouring each of three distinct mitochondrial haplotypes in an otherwise standardized genetic background, to either a mix of heat-killed bacteria, or a procedural control, prior to measuring their subsequent reproductive performance. The effect of the pathogen challenge on reproductive success did not differ across mitochondrial haplotypes; thus there was no evidence that patterns of reproductive plasticity were modified by the mitochondrial genotype following a non-infectious pathogen exposure. We discuss the implications of our data, and suggest future research avenues based on these results.
线粒体遗传变异塑造了与生殖、发育和生存相关的生活史特征的表达，并且还与人类中传染性细菌和病毒的流行和进展有关。这些对健康多方面成分的影响的广度及其与疾病易感性的联系，促使我们测试在非传染性病原体形式的免疫挑战后，线粒体单倍型的变异是否会影响生殖成功。我们通过在标准化遗传背景下分别携带三种不同线粒体单倍型的雄性和雌性果蝇（黑腹果蝇）来测试这一点，在测量它们随后的生殖性能之前，要么用热杀死的细菌混合物进行处理，要么进行程序对照处理。病原体挑战对生殖成功的影响在不同的线粒体单倍型之间没有差异；因此，没有证据表明在非传染性病原体暴露后，线粒体基因型会改变生殖可塑性的模式。我们根据这些结果讨论了我们数据的含义，并提出了未来的研究方向。
