Assessing the biological and molecular impacts of wildfire smoke exposure

Wildfire smoke exposure is an emerging health threat as wildfires increase in frequency and severity due to climate change. Wildfire smoke particulates contain organic free radicals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons known to cause inflammation, oxidative stress, and DNA damage when inhaled. Across species, males and females differ in their susceptibility to environmental challenge. Fruit fly females show heightened resistance to oxidative, genotoxic, or proteotoxic stress compared to males, trends also seen in other species. At the molecular level, transcriptome differences between the sexes may contribute to these divergent responses, but the molecular mechanisms remain unclear. To shed light into the mechanisms giving rise to sex-specific susceptibility to environmental challenge, this project uses Drosophila melanogaster to investigate the impact of smoke exposure on lifespan, climbing behaviour and transcriptomic changes in male and female flies.