RESEARCH ARTICLE The GATOR complex regulates an essential response to meiotic double- stranded breaks in Drosophila Youheng Wei1,2†, Lucia Bettedi1†, Chun-Yuan Ting1, Kuikwon Kim1, Yingbiao Zhang1, Jiadong Cai2, Mary A Lilly1* 1Cell Biology and Neurobiology Branch, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, United States; 2College of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, China Abstract The TORC1 regulator GATOR1/SEACIT controls meiotic entry and early meiotic events in yeast. However, how metabolic pathways influence meiotic progression in metazoans remains poorly understood. Here we examine the role of the TORC1 regulators GATOR1 and GATOR2 in the response to meiotic double-stranded breaks (DSB) during Drosophila oogenesis. We find that in mutants of the GATOR2 component mio, meiotic DSBs trigger the constitutive downregulation of TORC1 activity and a permanent arrest in oocyte growth. Conversely, in GATOR1 mutants, high TORC1 activity results in the delayed repair of meiotic DSBs and the hyperactivation of p53. Unexpectedly, we found that GATOR1 inhibits retrotransposon expression in the presence of meiotic DSBs in a pathway that functions in parallel to p53. Thus, our studies have revealed a link between oocyte metabolism, the repair of meiotic DSBs and retrotransposon expression. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.42149.001 *For correspondence:
[email protected] Introduction †These authors contributed We are interested in understanding how metabolism impacts meiotic progression during oogenesis. equally to this work Target of Rapamycin Complex 1 (TORC1) is a multi-protein complex that functions as a master regu- lator of metabolism (Loewith and Hall, 2011; Laplante and Sabatini, 2012a; Jewell and Guan, Competing interests: The 2013).