Growing Apart: Sex-Specific Plasticity And The Developmental Regulation Of Male And Female Body Size

成长分开：性别特异性可塑性和男性和女性体型的发育调节

• 批准号: 1952385
• 负责人: Alexander Shingleton
• 金额: $ 79.55万
• 依托单位: University of Illinois at Chicago
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-04-01 至 2025-03-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1952385&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Growing; Apart; Sex; Specific; Plasticity

In many animal species, including humans, adult males and females have different body sizes. However, despite the commonality of this phenomenon, scientists have a very poor understanding of the mechanisms that cause males and females to grow to different sizes. Previous research, using the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster as a model organism, suggest that the difference in body size between sexes is due to differences in how males and females respond to nutrition during their growth. In almost all animals, high levels of nutrition during growth increase adult body size. Preliminary data show that while males and females are the same size when reared on a poor-quality diet, females are better able to respond to a high-quality diet than males, and grow to a larger size. Consequently, females are more nutritionally-sensitive than males. The goal of this study is to discover the developmental and physiological mechanisms that make females more nutritionally-sensitive than males with respect to their growth and final body size. This research contributes to a growing understanding of how and why females and males respond differently to environmental stimuli, a phenomenon that has wide-ranging and important implications for many aspects of biology, including human biology. The grant will also support broader impact activities designed to bring together academic, medical, and educational workers from across the UIC campus and wider Chicago-land area, to discuss the scientific, medical, and societal impacts of biological differences between females and males. Research by the Shingleton Laboratory and others indicate that sexual-size dimorphism (SSD) in Drosophila melanogaster is at least partially regulated by the insulin/IGF-signaling pathway, a regulator of body size with respect to nutrition in almost all animals; that is, nutritional plasticity. These data, as well as several adaptive hypotheses on the evolution of SSD, suggest a relationship between SSD and sex-specific plasticity (SSP), the phenomenon whereby body size in one sex is more environmentally variable than in the other sex. Preliminary data from the Shingleton Laboratory support such a relationship by showing a strong genetic correlation between SSD and SSP among isogenic Drosophila lineages. The goal of this project is therefore to use Drosophila melanogaster as a model organism to test the hypothesis that the developmental genetic mechanisms that regulate sexual SSD also regulate SSP, and that these mechanisms either target or lie within the insulin-signaling pathway. The hypothesis will be tested by: (1) using a genome-wide association study to determine whether the same loci are associated with genetic variation in SSD and SSP; (2) characterizing at the level of gene expression/activity how females and males differentially respond to changes in developmental nutrition, and; (3) functionally testing the role that genes (identified in [1] and [2]) play in regulating SSD and SSP.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

在许多动物物种中，包括人类，成年雄性和雌性具有不同的身体大小。然而，尽管这种现象具有共性，但科学家们对导致雄性和雌性生长到不同大小的机制的理解非常有限。以前的研究，使用果蝇作为模式生物，表明性别之间的身体大小差异是由于男性和女性在生长过程中对营养的反应不同。在几乎所有动物中，生长期间的高营养水平会增加成年动物的体型。初步数据显示，虽然雄性和雌性在低质量饮食中长大时大小相同，但雌性比雄性更能对高质量饮食做出反应，并长得更大。因此，女性比男性对营养更敏感。本研究的目的是发现发育和生理机制，使女性比男性更营养敏感，就其生长和最终的身体大小。这项研究有助于越来越多地了解女性和男性如何以及为什么对环境刺激做出不同的反应，这种现象对生物学的许多方面都有广泛而重要的影响，包括人类生物学。该赠款还将支持更广泛的影响活动，旨在汇集来自UIC校园和更广泛的芝加哥土地地区的学术，医学和教育工作者，讨论女性和男性之间生物差异的科学，医学和社会影响。Shingleton实验室和其他人的研究表明，黑腹果蝇的性别大小二态性（SSD）至少部分受到胰岛素/IGF信号通路的调节，胰岛素/IGF信号通路是几乎所有动物中与营养有关的体型调节器;也就是营养可塑性。这些数据，以及几个自适应的SSD的进化假说，建议SSD和性别特异性可塑性（SSP），在一个性别的身体大小的现象是更多的环境变量比在其他性别之间的关系。Shingleton实验室的初步数据支持这种关系，显示了SSD和SSP在同基因果蝇谱系中的强烈遗传相关性。因此，本项目的目标是使用果蝇作为模式生物来测试这一假设，即调节性SSD的发育遗传机制也调节SSP，并且这些机制靶向或位于胰岛素信号通路内。该假设将通过以下方式进行检验：（1）使用全基因组关联研究来确定相同的基因座是否与SSD和SSP的遗传变异相关;（2）在基因表达/活性水平上表征女性和男性如何对发育营养变化的差异反应;（3）功能测试基因的作用，（见[1]和[2]）该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的评估被认为值得支持。影响审查标准。

项目成果

Network‐regulated organ allometry: The developmental regulation of morphological scaling

• DOI: 10.1002/wdev.391
• 发表时间: 2020-06
• 期刊: Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Developmental Biology
• 作者: I. Vea;A. Shingleton

Genetic Variation in Sexual Size Dimorphism Is Associated with Variation in Sex-Specific Plasticity in Drosophila

• DOI: 10.1086/725420
• 发表时间: 2023-09-01
• 期刊: AMERICAN NATURALIST
• 影响因子: 2.9
• 作者: Vea，Isabelle M.;Wilcox，Austin S.;Shingleton，Alexander W.
• 通讯作者: Shingleton，Alexander W.

Genetic variation of morphological scaling in Drosophila melanogaster

果蝇形态尺度的遗传变异

• DOI: 10.1038/s41437-023-00603-y
• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: Heredity
• 影响因子: 3.8
• 作者: Wilcox, Austin S.;Vea, Isabelle M.;Frankino, W. Anthony;Shingleton, Alexander W.
• 通讯作者: Shingleton, Alexander W.