The effect of larval diet on the fecundity-longevity relationship and age-related gene expression in Drosophila melanogaster

Our two main aims were 1) to isolate age-related changes in gene expression in females of the solitary insect, Drosophila melanogaster; and 2) to determine whether experimentally changing the shape of the fecundity-longevity relationship (by changing larvae diet) caused changes in age-related gene expression in these females. To address these aims we extracted RNA from three key tissues (fat body, head and ovary) from females at two time points (10% and 60% mortality phases). Each of these females had experienced one of two treatments: medium-quality larval diet (M) treatment (resulting in a positive fecundity-longevity relationship) and high-quality larval diet (H) treatment (resulting in a negative fecundity-longevity relationship). Overall design: We used mRNA-seq to identify the RNA profiles in three tissue types (fat body, head and ovary) in two time points (after 10% cohort death (RNA-1) and 60% cohort death (RNA-2)) for two treatments (medium-quality larval diet (M) and high-quality larval diet (H)), with three biological replicates per tissue/time point/treatment combination.