Date of Award

Spring 2022

Degree Type

Thesis

Department

Biological Sciences

Director of Thesis

Dr. Alissa Armstrong

Second Reader

Chad Simmons

Abstract

The prevalence of obesity in the United States has increased drastically and the effects of obesity on human physiology are not fully known at this point. It has been noted that there is a significant decrease of fertility rates in obese women. In order to study how exactly these high-sugar or high-fat diets are impacting fertility, Drosophila can be used as a model organism. The use of Drosophila as a model organism for humans is due to the many conserved molecular and systematic mechanisms, namely ovarian function, as well as conserved physiological responses to obesity and obesogenic diets. This study aims to determine the effects of obesogenic diets on ovarian function in female Drosophila melanogaster, specifically in regard to cap cell and germline stem cell (GSC) number. Age-matched w1118 flies were exposed to either a 0.8M sucrose high-sugar diet (HSD) or a normal diet (Nutri-Fly molasses). The ovaries of these flies were dissected after two and four days of dietary exposure and stained using anti-LamC (to label cap cell nuclei) and anti-alpha-spectrin (to label the fusomes of GSCs). After quantification and analysis, a slight decrease in the average number of cap cells per germaria was observed at both two and four-day time points. There was a significant decrease in the average number of GSCs per germaria at both time points. These findings indicate that the effects of HSD on ovarian function are present as early as GSC maintenance signaling.

First Page

1

Last Page

17

Rights

© 2022, Emma Otey

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