PLOS Biology · 12 authors, 4 centres
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This experimental study in Drosophila melanogaster shows that the interaction between mitochondrial and nuclear genotypes shapes both direct and parental effects of dietary lipids and amino acids on fitness, and implicates a specific SNP in the mitochondrial 16S rRNA gene.
The study used Drosophila melanogaster populations with controlled mitochondrial and nuclear genetic backgrounds to investigate how mitonuclear epistasis influences fitness responses to dietary variation. The central result is that the interaction effect sizes between diet, mitogenotype, and nucleogenotype were equal to or greater than the main effect of diet for some traits, meaning dietary impacts depend on specific genetic combinations. A C/T polymorphism in the mitochondrial 16S rRNA gene was statistically associated with these varied responses. The study also found that parental diet can influence offspring fitness through these mitonuclear interactions. The findings suggest that noncoding mitochondrial variation and mitonuclear epistasis are important sources of phenotypic variation in response to nutrition.
