Cancer brings forward oviposition in the fly Drosophila melanogaster

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• 作者：Audrey Arnal ; Camille Jacqueline ; Beata Ujvari ; Lucas Leger ; C&eacute ; line Moreno ; Dominique Faugere ; Aur&eacute ; lie Tasiemski ; C&eacute ; line Boidin-Wichlacz ; Doroth&eacute ; e Misse ; Franç ; ois Renaud ; Jacques Montagne ; Andreu Casali ; Benjamin Roche ; Fr&eacute ; d&eacute ; ric Mery and Fr&eacute ; d&eacute ; ric Thomas
• 刊名：Ecology and Evolution
• 出版年：2017
• 出版时间：January 2017
• 年：2017
• 卷：7
• 期：1
• 页码：272-276
• 全文大小：384K
• ISSN：2045-7758

文摘

Hosts often accelerate their reproductive effort in response to a parasitic infection, especially when their chances of future reproduction decrease with time from the onset of the infection. Because malignancies usually reduce survival, and hence potentially the fitness, it is expected that hosts with early cancer could have evolved to adjust their life-history traits to maximize their immediate reproductive effort. Despite the potential importance of these plastic responses, little attention has been devoted to explore how cancers influence animal reproduction. Here, we use an experimental setup, a colony of genetically modified flies Drosophila melanogaster which develop colorectal cancer in the anterior gut, to show the role of cancer in altering life-history traits. Specifically, we tested whether females adapt their reproductive strategy in response to harboring cancer. We found that flies with cancer reached the peak period of oviposition significantly earlier (i.e., 2 days) than healthy ones, while no difference in the length and extent of the fecundity peak was observed between the two groups of flies. Such compensatory responses to overcome the fitness-limiting effect of cancer could explain the persistence of inherited cancer-causing mutant alleles in the wild.