O. M. Strilbytska¹*, U. V. Semaniuk¹, N. I. Burdyliuk¹, O. V. Lushchak^1,2*

¹Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology, Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine;
²Research and Development University, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine;
*e-mail: olya_b08@ukr.net or oleh.lushchak@pnu.edu.ua

Received: 02 February 2021; Accepted: 21 January 2022

Dietary nutrients are the key determinants of the lifespan and metabolic health. The content of specific dietary compounds in the parental diet can epigenetically affect the physiological state of the offspring. Here, we studied how variable dietary protein content in the diet of parental generation affects antioxidant capacity of Drosophila melanogaster adult offspring. The dry yeast concentration ranging from 0.25% to 15% in the parental diet was the only variable in the experiments, whereas subsequent generation was kept on a diet of the same composition. We found, that flies fed with yeast-restricted (0.25%) diet produced F1 male flies with a higher cold tolerance and higher activity of the second-line antioxidant enzymes whereas in F1 females no effect of parental diet composition on the cold tolerance, catalase, GST, G6PDH, IDH activity and low thiols content was detected. The results suggest that nutrient-dependent changes of genes expression in the flies of paternal generation differently affect the stress response of males and females of the first-generation offspring.

Keywords: antioxidant enzymes, cold tolerance, dietary protein content, Drosophila melanogaster, offspring, parental generation