Genetic Dissection of Environment Induced Phenotypic Variation

Investigating Genetic Basis of High Sugar Diet Induced Diabetic-associated Traits using Drosophila recombinant population (DRP)

I employed a fly model with diabetic-like traits induced by a high sugar diet, and examined diet-induced phenotypes in the Drosophila Genetic Reference Panel (DGRP), a set of inbred lines derived from a natural population. These traits display a continuous and wide range of phenotypic variation and large broad-sense heritability. I then performed bulk segregant analyses using the Drosophila recombinant population resource we created. I have developed a cost-efficient high throughput protocol for the individual barcoding and genotyping of each fly (> 6000 individuals) by low coverage sequencing, along with an analysis pipeline using a hidden Markov model (HMM) for whole genome imputation and a mixed liner model for genome-wide association studies (GWAS). Results show SNPs with suggestive association with variation in the high sugar-induced traits, but also imply a prevalence of small-effect quantitative trait loci (QTLs). I am currently performing functional studies to biologically validate these candidates.