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. 2024 Apr 9;14(1):8314.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-58487-9.

Dietary restriction reveals sex-specific expression of the mTOR pathway genes in Japanese quails

Gebrehaweria K Reda  1   2   3 , Sawadi F Ndunguru  4   5   6 , Brigitta Csernus  6 , Renáta Knop  4 , James K Lugata  5   7 , Csaba Szabó  7 , Levente Czeglédi  4 , Ádám Z Lendvai  6
Affiliations

Dietary restriction reveals sex-specific expression of the mTOR pathway genes in Japanese quails

Gebrehaweria K Reda et al. Sci Rep. .

Erratum in

Abstract

Limited resources affect an organism's physiology through the conserved metabolic pathway, the mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR). Males and females often react differently to nutritional limitation, but whether it leads to differential mTOR pathway expression remains unknown. Recently, we found that dietary restriction (DR) induced significant changes in the expression of mTOR pathway genes in female Japanese quails (Coturnix japonica). We simultaneously exposed 32 male and female Japanese quails to either 20%, 30%, 40% restriction or ad libitum feeding for 14 days and determined the expression of six key genes of the mTOR pathway in the liver to investigate sex differences in the expression patterns. We found that DR significantly reduced body mass, albeit the effect was milder in males compared to females. We observed sex-specific liver gene expression. DR downregulated mTOR expression more in females than in males. Under moderate DR, ATG9A and RPS6K1 expressions were increased more in males than in females. Like females, body mass in males was correlated positively with mTOR and IGF1, but negatively with ATG9A and RS6K1 expressions. Our findings highlight that sexes may cope with nutritional deficits differently and emphasise the importance of considering sexual differences in studies of dietary restriction.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The effect of different dietary restriction levels on body mass of male Japanese quails across the two-week restriction period. Data are represented by the mean ± SEM from 8 birds per group and were analysed using two-way ANOVA from linear mixed effect model. Means followed by common letters within time points are not significantly different at p < 0.05. ADL ad libitum, DR20 20% restriction, DR30 30% restriction, DR40 40% restriction. Initial, day 0; week 1, day 7; week 2, day 14. ‘ns’, not significant at p < 0.05; ‘*’significantly different at p < 0.05; ‘**’significantly different at p < 0.01.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Comparing body mass of female and male Japanese quails in different dietary restriction levels across restriction period. (a) ADL, ad libitum group, (b) DR20, 20% restriction, (c) DR30, 30% restriction, (d) DR40, 40% restriction. Dots and vertical bars represent the mean ± SEM from 8 birds per group, and data were analysed using ANOVA of linear mixed-effect model. Female data is obtained from our previous study. ‘ns’, not significant at p < 0.05; ‘*’significantly different at p < 0.05; ‘**’significantly different at p < 0.01; ***significantly different at p < 0.001.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Effects of dietary restriction on expression of genes mediating nutrient availability in male Japanese quails. (a) mTOR, mechanistic target of rapamycin, (b) RPS6K1, ribosomal protein S6 kinase 1, (c) ATG9A, autophagy-related 9A, (d) IGF1, insulin-like growth factor 1, (e) IGF1R, insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor, (f) GHR, growth hormone receptor. Relative mRNA expression is analysed in log of fold change. Data are represented by the mean ± SEM from 8 birds per group. The Tukey test was used as a post hoc test at p < 0.05 significance level. Means followed by a common letter are not significantly different at p < 0.05. ADL ad libitum, DR20 20% restriction, DR30 30% restriction, DR40 40% restriction.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Sex-specific effects of dietary restriction in Japanese quails. (a) mTOR, mechanistic target of rapamycin; (b) RPS6K1, ribosomal protein S6 kinase 1; (c) ATG9A, autophagy-related 9A, (d) IGF1, insulin-like growth factor 1; (e) IGF1R, insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor; (f) GHR, growth hormone receptor. Relative mRNA expression is analysed in log fold change. Dots and vertical bars represent the mean ± SEM from 8 birds per group and data were analysed using ANOVA of linear model. ADL ad libitum, DR20 20% restriction, DR30 30% restriction, DR40 40% restriction. ‘ns’, not significant at p < 0.05; ‘.’marginally insignificant (p < 0.1). ‘*’Significantly different at p < 0.05; ‘**’significantly different at p < 0.01; ‘***’significantly different at p < 0.001.
Figure 5
Figure 5
A biplot of PCA for the liver gene expression and body mass in Japanese quails treated with different dietary restriction levels for 2 weeks. Clustering is based on dietary restriction levels and a dimensional indication of genes in line with the restriction levels. The ellipsoids are defined by the treatment groups. ADL ad libitum, DR20 20% restriction, DR30 30% restriction, DR40 40% restriction, mTOR mechanistic target of rapamycin, RPS6K1 ribosomal protein S6 kinase 1, ATG9A autophagy-related 9A, IGF1 insulin-like growth factor 1, IGF1R insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor, GHR growth hormone receptor.
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