DOI: 10.5061/dryad.9kd51c5kf
title: Data from: The biological significance of lipogenesis in Nasonia vitripennis

description: Parasitic wasps have long been thought to be unable to synthesise fatty
 acids de novo, but recent 13C-labelling studies have challenged this view.
 It remained unclear, however, whether the reported biosynthesis rates are
 of biological relevance. Here, we show in Nasonia vitripennis that ageing
 females with partly depleted lipid reserves produce biologically relevant
 amounts of fatty acids de novo. Females with varying oviposition history
 (0-48 h) prior to feeding 20% 13C-labelled glucose solution showed
 13C-incorporation rates of (mean ± SEM) 30±2%, 50±2%, 49±3%, and 21±2% in
 palmitic, stearic, oleic, and linoleic acid, respectively. The absolute
 amounts of fatty acids synthesised de novo across treatments corresponded
 to 28±3 egg lipid equivalents. Females incorporated de novo synthesised
 fatty acids into their eggs, and glucose-fed females laid more eggs than
 water-fed control females. The number of eggs laid prior to glucose
 feeding did not correlate with the degree of lipogenesis, but the amounts
 of de novo synthesised fatty acids correlated with constitutive (not
 synthesised de novo) fatty acids. Hence, glucose feeding has a twofold
 effect on the fatty acid status of N. vitripennis females by decelerating
 the catabolism of existing fat reserves and partially replenishing ebbing
 fat reserves by lipogenesis.
description: The MS Excel file contains six
 sheets entitled <strong>Figure 1</strong> –
 <strong>Figure 6 </strong>referring to the figures of the
 original paper and the supplementary material, respectively.
 The datasets in the tables
 "<strong>Figure 1-4</strong>" were obtained by the
 analysis of mass spectral data from <sup>13</sup>C-labelling
 experiments. Wasps were fed solutions of fully
 <sup>13</sup>C-labelled glucose of water (control) to
 investigate whether the sugar is incorporated into fatty acids thus
 indicating the de novo biosynthesis of fatty acids in the investigated
 species Nasonia vitripennis. Raw lipids of individual female wasps or eggs
 laid by the wasps were extracted with a solvent and extracted raw lipids
 were converted to fatty acid methyl esters (FAME). FAME were analysed by
 gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) and mass spectra of the four
 major FAME palmitic acid methyl ester (PAME), stearic acid methyl ester
 (SAME), oleic acid methyl ester (OAME), and linoleic acid methyl ester
 (LAME) were scrutinized for the occurrence of diagnostic ions indicative
 of the incorporation of <sup>13</sup>C-carbon into the fatty
 acid chain. Extracted ion chromatograms of the diagnostic ions were
 integrated at the retention times of PAME, SAME, OAME, and LAME and peak
 areas of the labelled ions were related to the unlabeled analogues to
 determine <sup>13</sup>C-incorporation rates. Additionally,
 individual amounts of FAME were determined by relating the peak areas of
 FAME in the total ion chromatograms to an internal standard
 (2-methyloctadecanoic acid methyl ester). The absolute amounts of de novo
 synthesized FAME were determined by applying
 <sup>13</sup>C-incorporation rates to the determined masses of
 individual FAME.   The
 dataset in table "<strong>Figure 5</strong>"
 presents the results of an experiment studying the effect of glucose
 feeding on longevity and fertility of N. vitripennis females. Females were
 exposed for 16 days
 alternately (2-day periods) to a 20% unlabelled glucose solution and to
 host pupae for oviposition. Control females were provided with water
 instead. Parasitised hosts were removed after each oviposition phase and
 kept under rearing conditions until the offspring had emerged. Surviving
 females were counted daily and offspring produced by each wasp in each
 oviposition phase was counted.   The
 dataset in table "<strong>Figure S4</strong>" was
 obtained as described for "<strong>Figure
 1-4</strong>". It containes
 <sup>13</sup>C-incorporation rates for PAME and SAME obtained
 by two different calculation methods using the diagnostic ion pair m/z90
 (labelled) and m/z87 (unlabelled) or the labelled molecular ion cluster
 (PAME: m/z 274, 276, 278, 280, 282, 284, and 286; SAME m/z 302, 304, 306,
 308, 310, 312, 314, and 316) and the unlabelled analogues (PAME: m/z 270;
 SAME: m/z 298). For more details see Materials and Methods of
 the original paper.