DNA and life cycle in Drosophila melanogaster: a nutritional-molecular connection
Abstract
Nutrition plays a key role in different organisms to carry out life processes at different phases of life cycle. Furthermore, specific types of food are needed to build DNA. They are further required to synthesize genes/hormones etc. Thus to evaluate the nutritional-DNA correlation in Drosophila sp. for differential life cycle events and fecundity, different nutrients medium were chosen and the phases of life cycle of Drosophila sp were assessed along with quantification of isolated DNA collected from flies of each set. All the data were compared against control set C containing banana. Other experimental set consisted of nutrient mediums like glucon-D (A1), rice (A2), sugar (A3), butter/ghee (A4), paneer (A5) and mango (A6) mixed with banana. All the life cycle stages/phases i.e., egg to larva (P1), larva to pupa (P2) and pupa to adult fly (P3) were studied. Results revealed addition of rice (A2) reduces the moulting time significantly at P1 to P2 stage when compared to control-C; whereas mango (A6) reduced the time taken to reach P2 to P3 stage. However, the DNA content of flies collected from A2, A3 and A6 set were higher than those collected from other sets. Therefore, the overall result clearly supports the fact that preference of carbohydrate was greater than other nutrients, however, an optimum level of total carbohydrate content was preferred for better survival and growth which possibly enhances the genomic DNA synthesis and aid in accelerating the production of several genes/ hormones involved in moulting of Drosophila sp.
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