Transcriptomic profiling in a Drosophila model of diet induced transgenerational epigenetic inheritance.

The study was conducted to identify differentially expressed genes in 1) whole flies that were fed a high sugar diet (HSD), in comparison to flies treated with control diet (CD), and 2) HSD male line derived F1 and F2 progenies, compared to that derived through CD male line. The ancestral HSD exposure of F1 or F2 flies was thus limited only to F0 males. However, besides comparing F1 and F2 flies raised on CD, the F1 and F2 flies treated with HSD were also compared. F0 HSD females were profiled but not used for the mating purpose. Throughout the experiment, 3-4 days old unmated male or virgin female flies were fed either HSD or CD for two weeks. The HSD and CD contained 1M and 0.15M sucrose, in that order. At the end of treatment, the flies were collected and homogenized in Trizol for RNA extraction. Transcriptomic profiling was performed using Affymetrix Drosophila Genome 2.0 array.