The Effect of Probiotic Bacteria on High Sugar Diet Induced Diabetes Type-2 Symptoms in Fruit Fly : With Focus on Lipid Metabolism

Abstract: As the prevalence of type 2 diabetes has increased globally, so has the need to further investigate the disorder’s underlying features and a potential target for treatment. Drosophila melanogaster has proven to be an excellent model organism to study type 2 diabetes (T2D). To see whether it can serve as a model organism to identify the treatment of T2D, a type 2 diabetes like model were created in Drosophila through high sugar diet (HSD). The aim of the study was to investigate the therapeutic effects of six different probiotic bacteria strains on T2D characteristics markers. Longevity, size, and weight measurement were performed. Followed by verification of HSD effects on these phenotypes. It was demonstrated that probiotics could improve weight and lifespan. Treatment using probiotics showed statistically increased body weight in both 3rd instar larvae and adult flies (p-value <0.05). There was no statistically significant difference in length between any of the groups including controls (p-value 0.25). However, the triglyceride assay showed a slightly significant difference between control low sugar diet and few of the treatment groups (L. paracasei with p-value 0.037, and L. acidophilus with p-value 0.025) fed larvae/adult flies, and there was no statistically significant difference between controls (high and low sugar diets), and probiotics treatment groups (L. plantarum, B. animalis and B. breve) fed larvae/adult flies with a p-value >0.05. To investigate the effect on gene expression of four genes (FASNCG3523, FASNCG3524, FASNCG17374 & dsREBP) important in lipid metabolism, qPCR was performed using the Taqman method. All probiotic treatment groups had significantly decreased gene expression of FASN compared to the control groups. Findings of this study suggest that Drosophila melanogaster can be utilized as a model organism to study T2D and that further studies concerning the effects of probiotic treatment in Drosophila are required to fully understand the interactions and mechanism of action.