PgmNr D1339: Untargeted metabolomics elucidates the role of diet and triglyceride storage in Drosophila melanogaster larvae.

Authors:
Vishal Oza; Laura Reed


Institutes
Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL.


Keyword: metabolism

Abstract:

Untargeted Metabolomics has been used to identify altered metabolic pathways in disease state. Here we employ Drosophila as a model organism to evaluate various aspects of Metabolic Syndrome (MetS), a complex disease that increase the risk for heart disease and diabetes. The prevalence of MetS has been attributed to the westernized dietary habit and sedentary lifestyle. Our previous studies have established, diet as one of the important contributors to metabolic phenotypes. Using untargeted metabolomics we have isolated and identified global metabolites in Drosophila larvae. We then employed Random Forest algorithm to obtain important metabolites that differed between the High fat (HFD) and normal (ND) diet as well as between reaction norm phenotypes (flies that store more triglyceride on normal diet and flies that store less triglyceride on normal diet). We found that in flies fed on HFD had an upregulation of the omega fatty acid oxidation pathway which is an alternative to the more common beta fatty acid oxidation. Furthermore, there was no correlation observed between triglyceride storage phenotype and fatty acids, indicating diet played more important role over triglyceride phenotype. In conclusion, although untargeted metabolomics allows for elucidation of global metabolic profile, the lack of Drosophila specific metabolites and pathways database hinders the use of Drosophila as a model organism for metabolomics studies.

Keywords: Untargeted metabolomics, Drosophila melanogaster, Drosophila metabolomics.