Drosophila parasitoids go to space: Unexpected effects of spaceflight on hosts and their parasitoids
Jennifer Chou,
Johnny R. Ramroop,
Amanda M. Saravia-Butler,
Brian Wey,
Matthew P. Lera,
Medaya L. Torres,
Mary Ellen Heavner,
Janani Iyer,
Siddhita D. Mhatre,
Sharmila Bhattacharya,
Shubha Govind
Affiliations
Jennifer Chou
Biology Department, The City College of New York, 160 Convent Avenue, New York, NY 10031, USA
Johnny R. Ramroop
Biology Department, The City College of New York, 160 Convent Avenue, New York, NY 10031, USA
Amanda M. Saravia-Butler
KBR NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA; Space Biosciences Division, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA
Brian Wey
Biology Department, The City College of New York, 160 Convent Avenue, New York, NY 10031, USA; PhD Program in Biology, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016, USA
Matthew P. Lera
Space Biosciences Division, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA
Medaya L. Torres
Space Biosciences Division, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA; Bionetics, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA
Mary Ellen Heavner
Biology Department, The City College of New York, 160 Convent Avenue, New York, NY 10031, USA; PhD Program in Biochemistry, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016, USA
Janani Iyer
KBR NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA; Space Biosciences Division, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA; Universities Space Research Association, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA
Siddhita D. Mhatre
KBR NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA; Space Biosciences Division, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA
Sharmila Bhattacharya
Space Biosciences Division, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA
Shubha Govind
Biology Department, The City College of New York, 160 Convent Avenue, New York, NY 10031, USA; PhD Program in Biology, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016, USA; PhD Program in Biochemistry, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016, USA; Corresponding author
Summary: While fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) and humans exhibit immune system dysfunction in space, studies examining their immune systems’ interactions with natural parasites in space are lacking. Drosophila parasitoid wasps modify blood cell function to suppress host immunity. In this study, naive and parasitized ground and space flies from a tumor-free control and a blood tumor-bearing mutant strain were examined. Inflammation-related genes were activated in space in both fly strains. Whereas control flies did not develop tumors, tumor burden increased in the space-returned tumor-bearing mutants. Surprisingly, control flies were more sensitive to spaceflight than mutant flies; many of their essential genes were downregulated. Parasitoids appeared more resilient than fly hosts, and spaceflight did not significantly impact wasp survival or the expression of their virulence genes. Previously undocumented mutant wasps with novel wing color and wing shape were isolated post-flight and will be invaluable for host-parasite studies on Earth.
