Mudunuri Akhila, Chandrakanth Mohankumar, Khan Soumen, Sura Chand, Kumar Nishant, Tung Sudipta
Integrated Genetics and Evolution Laboratory (IGEL), Department of Biology Ashoka University Sonipat Haryana India.
Present address: Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behavior University of Konstanz Konstanz Germany.
Ecol Evol. 2024 Feb 9;14(2):e10976. doi: 10.1002/ece3.10976. eCollection 2024 Feb.
Food is fundamental for the survival of organisms, governing growth, maintenance, and reproduction through the provision of essential macronutrients. However, access to food with optimum macronutrient composition, which will maximize the evolutionary fitness of an organism, is not always guaranteed. This leads to dietary mismatches with potential impacts on organismal performance. To understand the consequences of such dietary mismatches, we examined the effects of isocaloric diets varying in macronutrient composition on eight key organismal traits spanning across the lifespan of a large outbred population ( ~ 2500). Our findings reveal that carbohydrate-reduced isocaloric diets correlates to accelerated pre-adult development and boosts reproductive output without impacting pre-adult viability and body size. Conversely, an elevated dietary carbohydrate content correlated to reduced lifespan in flies, evidenced by accelerated functional senescence including compromised locomotor activity and deteriorating gut integrity. Furthermore, transcriptomic analysis indicated a substantial difference in gene regulatory landscapes between flies subject to high-carbohydrate versus high-protein diet, with elevated protein levels indicating transcriptomes primed for reduced synthesis of fatty acids. Taken together, our study helps advance our understanding of the effect of macronutrient composition on life history traits and their interrelations, offering critical insights into potential adaptive strategies that organisms might adopt against the continual dietary imbalances prevalent in the rapidly evolving environment.
食物是生物体生存的基础，通过提供必需的大量营养素来控制生长、维持和繁殖。然而，获得具有最佳大量营养素组成的食物（这将使生物体的进化适应性最大化）并非总能得到保证。这会导致饮食不匹配，对生物体的表现产生潜在影响。为了了解这种饮食不匹配的后果，我们研究了等热量饮食中大量营养素组成的变化对一个大型远交群体（约2500只）整个生命周期内八个关键生物体特征的影响。我们的研究结果表明，碳水化合物含量降低的等热量饮食与成年前发育加速相关，并能提高繁殖产量，而不会影响成年前的生存能力和体型。相反，饮食中碳水化合物含量升高与果蝇寿命缩短相关，这表现为功能衰老加速，包括运动活性受损和肠道完整性恶化。此外，转录组分析表明，高碳水化合物饮食与高蛋白饮食的果蝇之间的基因调控格局存在显著差异，蛋白质水平升高表明转录组准备减少脂肪酸的合成。综上所述，我们的研究有助于增进我们对大量营养素组成对生活史特征及其相互关系的影响的理解，为生物体可能针对快速变化环境中普遍存在的持续饮食失衡所采取的潜在适应性策略提供了关键见解。
