The gut microbiome participates in transgenerational inheritance of low‐temperature responses in Drosophila melanogaster

Abstract

Environmental perturbations induce transcriptional changes, some of which may be inherited even in the absence of the initial stimulus. Previous studies have focused on transfers through the germline although microbiota is also passed on to the offspring. Thus, we inspected the involvement of the gut microbiome in transgenerational inheritance of environmental exposures in Drosophila melanogaster . We grew flies in the cold versus control temperatures and compared their transcriptional patterns in both conditions as well as in their offspring. F2 flies grew in control temperature, while we controlled their microbiota acquisition from either F1 sets. Transcriptional status of some genes was conserved transgenerationally, and a subset of these genes, mainly expressed in the gut, was transcriptionally dependent on the acquired microbiome.

Transgenerational inheritance of cold temperature response in Drosophila

“…A) to examine if the set of differentially expressed genes induced by cold and fecal transfer as reported by Zare et al . is enriched for microbiota‐induced differentially expressed genes identified in previous studies on D. melanogaster . A significant FE or FD in this analysis would indicate that the overlap between any two given gene sets is higher or lower than what is expected by chance.…”

“…Labels originally used in ref. are indicated in parentheses. Labels used here to represent different microbiota studies are also similarly indicated.…”

“…Inheritance of transcriptional responses over one generation following exposure to cold temperature has recently been reported by Zare et al . , in Drosophila melanogaster . It has been found that even though cold‐induced gene expression changes are predominantly transferred to the next generation through the germline, fecal transfer experiments also suggest a potential contribution of the acquired microbiome in offspring transcriptional responses .…”

“…, in Drosophila melanogaster . It has been found that even though cold‐induced gene expression changes are predominantly transferred to the next generation through the germline, fecal transfer experiments also suggest a potential contribution of the acquired microbiome in offspring transcriptional responses . The authors proposed that future studies comparing microbiota‐associated and axenic flies may clarify the latter possibility .…”

“…The authors proposed that future studies comparing microbiota‐associated and axenic flies may clarify the latter possibility . To this end, we present here a bioinformatic analysis examining overlap of differentially expressed genes reported in the whole body transcriptome in the cold inheritance study with microbiota‐induced genes reported in three separate D. melanogaster studies . In one, the impact of introducing a defined set of four commensal bacterial strains in axenic flies has been assessed through transcriptome analysis of fly midgut .…”