Abstract

Obesity is increasing, and we know little about how genetic variation might affect survival rates on high sugar diets. Drosophila melanogaster shares many similarities with humans, including metabolic pathways and developmental genes. Here we used genetically tractable Drosophila melanogaster to record survivorship of females on a 25% sugar diet. We measured longevity of females from 109 inbred and fully sequenced lines reared on a high sugar diet. The lines showed significant differences in survival after 14 days. Using a genome wide association study, we identified 9 polymorphisms in unique genes that are associated with longevity. Three of these genes, Cac, Slob and Ect 4, affect the neuron which could be affecting survival through changes in feeding as it affects dopamine producing neurons. We propose to determine if changes in the expression of these genes are associated with the differences in survival and whether long and short-lived varying in feeding behavior.