Transcription profiling of response of adult Drosophila to oxidative and ER stress

We used oligonucleotide microarrays to address the specificities of transcriptional responses of adult Drosophila to different stresses induced by paraquat and H2O2, two oxidative stressors, and by tunicamycin which induces an endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress. Flies were tested 24 hours after exposure to continuous stresses induced by ingestion of paraquat, H2O2 or tunicamycin at concentrations leading to similar effects on viability. We used concentrations of 1% H2O2, 5mM paraquat and 12uM of tunicamycin which lead to negligeable mortality at 24 hours. A paraquat concentration of 15mM was also used for comparison with previous studies Both specific and common responses to the three stressors were observed and whole genome functional analysis identified several important classes of stress responsive genes. Within some functional classes, we observed large variabilities of transcriptional changes between isozymes, which may reflect unsuspected functional specificities.

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Girardot F, Monnier V, Tricoire H