Cell journal found another secret of diet and gene: amino acid matching is also very important

  Animal experiments have shown that although calorie restriction can prolong life, a protein rich diet can shorten life even if it contains very little calories However, in the early stage of life, reproductive adaptability needs higher protein consumption It's just like the theory of evolution says: "reproduction and life span balance each other, and the difference is long."
A research team led by Matthew Piper from Monash University in Australia has previously found that the proportion of certain amino acids in the diet of fruit flies may lead to the imbalance of reproduction life balance Piper is very interested in this, hoping to find out whether it can build a diet to strengthen reproduction life balance   Their latest paper, published in cell metabolism, points out that diets that balance amino acid consumption may already exist in genes, especially in exons that encode proteins In order to test this theory, Piper designed a diet for Drosophila, in which the amino acid composition accurately corresponds to the proportion of each amino acid pointed by exon of Drosophila Piper then compared the behavior and physiology of the flies in the exon matching diet with those in a diet that matched calories and nutrients rather than amino acids   Dna-to-dish recipe: in order to obtain a specific proportion of amino acid diet, first sequence all protein coding regions (exons) in the biological genome, and then determine the proportion of each of 20 kinds of coding amino acids (five color bars shown in the figure are five kinds of DNA codons) Next, the researchers mixed the exact proportion of amino acids with other nutrients (carbohydrates, lipids, etc.) and gave them to the animals The results showed that the animals fed the exon pairing diet grew larger than those fed the same diet, but with different amino acid ratios   The researchers found that when given a choice, flies prefer exon matching foods Interestingly, when free diet is allowed, the number of flies on exon matching diet is less than that on non matching diet, indicating that the former can bring greater satiety and nutritional efficiency Compared with the unmatched diet, the flies on the exon matched diet also showed faster growth rate, adult weight and fecundity (oviposition), but their life span was unchanged At the same time, mice fed the exon matching diet also showed a similar situation   Andrzej Bartke, from the University of Southern Illinois, said it was an "innovative and important" study "It shows that genetic information predicts the use of amino acids by organisms, so we can also design diets based on the genes of organisms."
In addition, Bartke added: "most of the underlying mechanisms that combine nutrients with growth, reproduction and aging are very similar in many different species, so it can also be considered that these findings may apply to human nutrition."
Piper said the animals were kept in a temperature and humidity controlled, non infectious environment Next we need to see if we can get the same results beyond the laboratory conditions   Professor James Mitchell of Harvard University said that even if the exon custom food is not suitable for human body, it is also of great significance in "animal husbandry and other industries", whose goal is to maximize the acceleration of growth.