The effects of developmental acclimation on gene expression during temperature shock in Drosophila

Climate change is an important issue facing the world, with the potential to affect a wide variety of organisms. Understanding how different organisms adapt to different temperatures is important to understanding how they will respond to the changing environment. Drosophila have a variety of different methods of detecting and adapting to extreme temperatures. Drosophila have dedicated neurons that are involved in the detection of temperature, hot, cold, and extreme in both directions. This study aimed to determine the changes in gene expression in Drosophila brains after developmental acclimation and then temperature shock. Flies were acclimated at 18°C, 25 °C and 30 °C during development, then placed in 25°C after development. After the developmental acclimation, flies were subject to either heat stress or cold stress. The brain tissue was then extracted immediately after. mRNA was extracted and sequenced to determine the levels of gene expression in the brain. Gene expression data were compared between the different developmental acclimation temperatures to determine how developmental acclimation can affect gene expression levels in fully developed adults