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

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.108759

Drosophila parasitoids go to space: Unexpected effects of spaceflight on hosts and their parasitoids

iScience. 2023 Dec 16;27(1):108759. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.108759. eCollection 2024 Jan 19.

Authors

Jennifer Chou¹, Johnny R Ramroop¹, Amanda M Saravia-Butler^{2

3}, Brian Wey^{1

4}, Matthew P Lera³, Medaya L Torres^{3

5}, Mary Ellen Heavner^{1

6}, Janani Iyer^{2

3

7}, Siddhita D Mhatre^{2

3}, Sharmila Bhattacharya³, Shubha Govind^{1

4

6}

Affiliations

¹ Biology Department, The City College of New York, 160 Convent Avenue, New York, NY 10031, USA.
² KBR NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA.
³ Space Biosciences Division, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA.
⁴ PhD Program in Biology, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016, USA.
⁵ Bionetics, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA.
⁶ PhD Program in Biochemistry, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016, USA.
⁷ Universities Space Research Association, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA.

Abstract

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.

Keywords: Biological sciences; Entomology; Parasitology.

Grants and funding

F31 GM111052/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/United States