Diverse biological processes coordinate the transcriptional response to nutritional changes in a Drosophila melanogaster multiparent population.

Our goal is to understand the transcriptional response in different nutritional environments in an outbred multiparent population. We use a synthetic population derived from the Drosophila Synthetic Population Resources (DSPR), and analyze RNA-seq data sequenced from pooled samples of female D. melanogaster exposed to multiple diet conditions differing in the proportion of protein and carbohydrate sources. We profile gene expression for three tissues in high replication to answer the following specific questions:How does gene expression change in response to nutritional environment?What specific biological processes and pathways are significantly perturbed by diet treatment?Which sets of genes show similar expression patterns across diets and tissues, and what biological processes are involved in these specific patterns?Our study has broad potential application to several fields including, but not limited to human and animal genomics of starvation and dietary excess, and evolutionary biology of environmental change.