Parental dietary sucrose affects metabolic and antioxidant enzyme activities in Drosophila

The influence of parental nutrition as a key environmental factor that can influence offspring performance has become a hot topic for modern investigations. In the current study using fruit flies, Drosophila melanogaster, we found the sucrose concentration of the diet in the parental generation had a significant influence on the metabolism and antioxidant defense of the next generation, even when that subsequent generation had been shifted to a standard diet. We found that low concentrations of dietary carbohydrate in the parental generation led to higher activities of lactate dehydrogenase, malate dehydrogenase (MDH) and alanine transaminase (ALT) enzymes and increased urea content in their progeny. Moreover, higher activities of the first- and second-line antioxidant defense enzymes were detected in F1 males generated from parents fed a low-carbohydrate diet. Low sucrose concentration in the parental diet resulted in increased levels of protein thiols but decreased the low-molecular-weight thiol group content in F1 males. The influence of different dietary sucrose concentrations also resulted in sex-dependent differences, where MDH, ALT, glutathione-S-transferase, glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase and isocitrate dehydrogenase activities and levels of thiol groups were unaffected in F1 females. The results highlight the transgenerational influence that specific dietary macronutrients provided in the parental diet, namely carbohydrates, can have on the next generation, influencing enzyme activities, metabolic pathways and antioxidant defenses in progeny Drosophila.