Faculty Collaboration Database

Natural variants of C. elegans demonstrate defects in both sperm function and oogenesis at elevated temperatures. PLoS One 2014;9(11):e112377

Date

11/08/2014

Pubmed ID

25380048

Pubmed Central ID

PMC4224435

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0112377

Scopus ID

2-s2.0-84911363042 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site)   31 Citations

Abstract

The temperature sensitivity of the germ line is conserved from nematodes to mammals. Previous studies in C. briggsae and Drosophila showed that isolates originating from temperate latitudes lose fertility at a lower temperature than strains originating from tropical latitudes. In order to investigate these relationships in C. elegans, analysis of the fertility of 22 different wild-type isolates of C. elegans isolated from equatorial, tropical and temperate regions was undertaken. It was found that there are significant temperature, genotype and temperature × genotype effects on fertility but region of isolation showed no significant effect on differences in fertility. For most isolates 100% of the population maintained fertility from 20°C to 26°C, but there was a precipitous drop in the percentage of fertile hermaphrodites at 27°C. In contrast, all isolates show a progressive decrease in brood size as temperature increases from 20°C to 26°C, followed by a brood size near zero at 27°C. Temperature shift experiments were performed to better understand the causes of high temperature loss of fertility. Males up-shifted to high temperature maintained fertility, while males raised at high temperature lost fertility. Down-shifting males raised at high temperature generally did not restore fertility. This result differs from that observed in Drosophila and suggested that in C. elegans spermatogenesis or sperm function is irreversibly impaired in males that develop at high temperature. Mating and down-shifting experiments with hermaphrodites were performed to investigate the relative contributions of spermatogenic and oogenic defects to high temperature loss of fertility. It was found that the hermaphrodites of all isolates demonstrated loss in both spermatogenic and oogenic germ lines that differed in their relative contribution by isolate. These studies uncovered unexpectedly high variation in both the loss of fertility and problems with oocyte function in natural variants of C. elegans at high temperature.

Author List

Petrella LN

Author

Lisa Petrella PhD Assistant Professor in the Biological Sciences department at Marquette University

MESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold

Adaptation, Physiological
Animals
Caenorhabditis elegans
Climate
Female
Fertility
Genotype
Geography
Hermaphroditic Organisms
Male
Oogenesis
Reproduction
Spermatozoa
Temperature