DROSOPHILA NUTRIGENOMICS CAN PROVIDE CLUES TO HUMAN GENE-NUTRIENT INTERACTIONS

Abstract

Nutrigenomics refers to the complex effects of the nutritional environment on the genome, epigenome, and proteome of an organism. The diverse tissue- and organ-specific effects of diet include gene expression patterns, organization of the chromatin, and protein post-translational modifications. Long-term effects of diet range from obesity and associated diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease to increased or decreased longevity. Furthermore, the diet of the mother can potentially have long-term health impacts on the children, possibly through inherited diet-induced chromatin alterations. Drosophila is a unique and ideal model organism for conducting nutrigenomics research for numerous reasons. Drosophila, yeast, and Caenorhabditis elegans all have sophisticated genetics as well as sequenced genomes, and researchers working with all three organisms have made valuable discoveries in nutrigenomics. However, unlike yeast and C. elegans, Drosophila has adipose-like tissues and a lipid transport system, making it a closer model to humans. This review summarizes what has already been learned in Drosophila nutrigenomics (with an emphasis on lipids and sterols), critically evaluates the data, and discusses fruitful areas for future research.

Drosophila lacks C20 and C22 PUFAs

“…( 14 ), Drosophila has a fat body fi lled with an adipose-like tissue and a lipid transport system similar to humans, which is considered one of the major advantages of it serving as a unique model for nutrigenomics research ( 15 ). However, Gutierrez et al .…”

Nuclear Receptor DHR96 Acts as a Sentinel for Low Cholesterol Concentrations in Drosophila melanogaster

“…Nutrigenomics is a powerful strategy for identifying genes that act in nutrientdependent pathways (4,34), and our studies represent a first step toward the identification of genes with hitherto unknown roles in cholesterol homeostasis. We show here that the expression of four Niemann-Pick genes-NPC1b and NPC2c, -d, and -e-is strongly dependent on the concentration of dietary cholesterol.…”

The Sir David Cuthbertson Medal Lecture Hunting for new pieces to the complex puzzle of obesity

“…Furthermore, knocking out or overexpressing certain genes represents a further means of deciphering the importance of a specific protein or signalling cascade relevant to energy balance Blüher, 2005). The findings obtained from the wide range of the 'omic' technologies is providing an amount of information not previously attainable, with nutrigenomics (Müller & Kersten, 2003), epigenetics (Oommen et al 2005), microarrays (Nadler & Attie, 2001;Collier et al 2002;Copland et al 2003;Middleton et al 2004;, in silico approaches (Borodina & Nielsen, 2005), RNA silencing (Ashrafi et al 2003;Grunweller & Hartmann, 2005;Shankar et al 2005) and other emerging technologies (Carella et al 2003;Mobasheri et al 2004;Droit et al 2005;Ruden et al 2005;Viguerie et al 2005) offering new and unprecedented tools in this area. Interestingly, all approaches can and should be combined to better understand the complex puzzle of obesity.…”