The impact of genetic background and gender on the increase in mitotic index in response to mating ofDrosophila melanogaster

Abstract

The replenishment of specialized cells depends on the activity of stem cells.Recent advances in stem cell research have shown that the germline stem cells (GSCs) in Drosophila melanogaster can increase their mitotic activity in response to mating. Here, we show that this ability to respond to mating is eliminated if the males are mutant for the ABC transporter, White, the genetic background for a plethora of fly lines. Furthermore, we were not able to reproduce previous findings that female flies increase their GSC numbers and mitotic activity upon mating. Our findings underline the importance of careful experimental design and control specimen. that, in turn, undergo a cascade of regulated proliferation and differentiation steps. Stem cells have to adjust their activity to situations of demand. Recent advances in the literature suggests that GSCs in the gonad of Drosophila melanogaster can adjust their mitotic divisions to a variety of factors, including diet, temperature, and mating status (Drummond-Barbosa and Spradling, 2001

Regulation of Mating-Induced Increase in Female Germline Stem Cells in the Fruit Fly Drosophila melanogaster

“…Lastly, although our group has reported an increase in matinginduced female GSCs, other research groups have reported that post-mating increase in female GSCs has not been observed in their laboratories (Kao et al, 2015;Malpe and Schulz, 2020). Currently, we do not know the particular conditions that influence such discrepancies.…”

“…However, in our experiments, we usually house 10-20 females with the equal number of males in one vial containing the standard cornmeal-dry yeast-sugar-agarose fly food without wet yeast paste. Authors Malpe and Schulz (2020) conducted their mating assay at 29 • C with yeast paste and apple juice as diet, while our group usually conducts the mating assay at 25 • C with a standard cornmeal-dry yeast-sugar-agarose fly food. Additionally, from the currently available literature, we cannot precisely compare the differences in diverse fly food recipes used in various laboratories.…”