DOI: 10.5061/dryad.8cz8w9gxt
title: Germline proliferation trades off with lipid metabolism in Drosophila

description: Little is known about the metabolic basis of life-history trade-offs but
 lipid stores seem to play a pivotal role. During reproduction, an
 energetically highly costly process, animals mobilize fat reserves.
 Conversely, reduced or curtailed reproduction promotes lipid storage in
 many animals. Systemic signals from the gonad seem to be involved: C.
 elegans lacking germline stem cells display endocrine changes, have
 increased fat stores and are long-lived. Similarly, germline-ablated D.
 melanogaster exhibit major somatic physiological changes, but whether and
 how germline loss affects lipid metabolism remains largely unclear. Here
 we show that germline-ablated flies have profoundly altered energy
 metabolism at the transcriptional level and store excess fat as compared
 to fertile flies. Germline activity thus constrains or represses fat
 accumulation, and this effect is conserved between flies and worms. More
 broadly, our findings confirm that lipids represent a major energetic
 currency in which costs of reproduction are paid.
description: # Germline proliferation trades off with lipid metabolism in Drosophila
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.8cz8w9gxt](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.8cz8w9gxt) Here we make available the phenotypic raw data (i.e., female fecundity of germline-less vs. fertile female flies as a function of dietary yeast levels; lipid content of germline-less vs. fertile female flies as a function of their adult age) which are presented in Rodrigues et al. (2023; "Germline proliferation trades off with lipid metabolism in *Drosophila*", published *Evolution Letters*). For details please see the paper, in particular the Materials and Methods section. ## Description of the data and file structure Read me: explanation of raw data. This excel file contains the phenotypic raw data presented in Rodrigues et al. (2023; "Germline proliferation trades off with lipid metabolism in *Drosophila*", published *Evolution Letters*). For details please see the paper, in particular the Materials and Methods section. In Tabs (A), (B), and (C) we present the following raw data. Tab (A): Total number of eggs laid over a 20-day period by single females of the following 3 genotypes: germline-less (sterile) genotype (yw; +/+; nanos-GAL4::VP16/nanos-GAL4::VP16), fertile control genotype 1 (y1,w1118) and fertile control genotype 2 (y,w; CyO/+; nanos-GAL4::VP16/+) across 4 yeast levels in the diet (2%, 4%, 8%, 12%). Each row represent the data of a single female. These data are presented in Figure 1 of the paper, with the figure legend reporting the statistical analyses. Tab (B): Lipid / TAG (triacylglyceride) content (µg fat / mg fly) of germline-less females (yw; +/+; nanos-GAL4::VP16/nanos-GAL4::VP16) versus fertile control females (y,w; CyO/+; nanos-GAL4::VP16/+) as a function of adult age, as shown in Figure 8 of the paper. Four age classes were used in the assay: (1) 1-2 day-old; (2) 5-8 day-old females; (3) 12-14 day-old females; and (4) 28-40 day-old females (for simplicity, these 4 age classes are called "2", "7", "14" and "28" days). Tab (C): data from an assay mentioned in the Materials and Methods section of the paper (see the subsection entitled "*Drosophila* strains and maintenance"): the assay examined potential effects of cross direction on fat content (µg fat / mg fly) for sterile (germline-less) genotypes (called "BN" or "NB", depending on the cross direction) and fertile control genotypes (called "BNCyO" or "NBCyO", depending on the cross direction). The 2 reciprocal crosses were as follows. Cross direction 1: UAS-bam females x nanos-GAL4 males, resulting in 50% of F1 flies that are sterile (called “BN”: y,w; nanos-GAL4::VP16/+; UAS-bam/+) and 50% of F1 flies that are fertile (called “BNCyO”; y,w; CyO/+; nanos-GAL4::VP16/+; called “Fertile - CyO”); and cross direction 2: nanos-GAL4 females x UAS-bam males resulting in 50% of F1 flies that are sterile (called “NB”: y,w; nanos-GAL4::VP16/+; UAS-bam/+) and 50% of F1 flies that are fertile (called “NBCyO”; y,w; CyO/+; nanos-GAL4::VP16/+; called “Fertile - CyO”). See our paper for details. Corresponding author: Thomas Flatt (e-mail contact: thomas.flatt@unifr.ch). ## Sharing/Access information not applicable. ## Code/Software see main paper.