Control of male-female differences in stress responses and survival by sex determination gene transformer.

概述。生物性别决定了动物发育和生理的许多方面，包括生存压力、体型和寿命。尽管性别对这些特征很重要，但性别作为一个实验变量经常被忽视。因此，人们对男女在细胞过程、发育、生理和行为方面的差异是如何导致生存、体型或寿命方面的性别差异知之甚少。性激素解释了一些动物的这些差异；然而，在没有性激素的动物中也存在性别差异，比如昆虫。我们对雌雄差异如何导致昆虫的性别偏见生存或衰老的了解很少。我的长期研究目标是提高我们对基本生物过程中的性别差异如何导致昆虫这些复杂特征中的性别偏见的理解，以果蝇为模型。本研究的重点是研究饥饿生存中性别差异的机制。我的实验室发现了一个单一的基因，变压器（tra），它在果蝇的饥饿生存中产生了雄性和雌性的差异。已知Tra控制女性的性发育、行为和生殖；然而，我们的发现定义了Tra在生存中的全新作用。我们将把我们对Tra的生存影响的独特知识与现有的遗传工具相结合，以确定影响生存的男性和女性之间的相关差异。为此，我们将努力实现以下目标：

OVERVIEW. Biological sex determines many aspects of animal development and physiology, including stress survival, body size, and lifespan. In spite of the importance of sex to these traits, sex is often overlooked as an experimental variable. As a result, little is known about how male-female differences in cellular processes, development, physiology and behaviour cause sex differences in survival, body size or lifespan. Sex hormones explain these differences in some animals; yet sex differences also exist in animals without sex hormones, like insects. Our knowledge of how male-female differences cause sex-biased survival or aging in insects is poor. My long-term research goal is to improve our understanding of how sex differences in fundamental biological processes cause sex bias in these complex traits in insects using the fruit fly, Drosophila, as a model. The focus of this proposal is to study the mechanisms underlying sex differences in starvation survival. My lab discovered a single gene, transformer (tra), that creates male-female differences in starvation survival in Drosophila. Tra is known to control female sexual development, behaviour and reproduction; however, our finding defines a totally new role for Tra in survival. We will combine our unique knowledge of Tra’s survival effects with existing genetic tools to identify the relevant differences between males and females that influence survival. To do this, we will pursue the following Goals: GOAL 1. Identify the tissues and stage of development in which sex acts to enhance female survival. Our discovery of Tra as a switch between male and female survival provides a powerful tool to unambiguously determine how each tissue and stage of development contributes to sex differences in survival. These studies will allow us to dissect how sexual development and maintenance of sexual identity contribute to male-female differences in survival, and identify tissues that participate in the stress response. GOAL 2. Characterize the genetic and molecular mechanisms underlying sex-biased survival. Tra is an SR protein, and has been shown to regulate alternative splicing. We will determine the molecular mechanism of Tra’s effects on survival by identifying its downstream target genes. These studies will provide novel mechanistic insight into an important question in biology - how do males and females survive differently? SIGNIFICANCE. This research not only addresses a fundamental question in biology, but it has important agricultural and industrial implications due to male-female differences in survival after pesticide exposure. The knowledge we generate will assist in the development of novel pesticides that equally target males and females. Several industries in Canada (eg. agriculture), will benefit from this knowledge to combat infestations of harmful species such as Drosophila suzukii (soft fruit crops).