Abstract: 【Aim】 Previous studies have shown that salbutamol, a main component of lean meat powder, can be accumulated in human body after ingestion of meat containing it. Excessive salbutamol intakes would lead to a series of adverse reaction in organisms, but its toxic action mechanism remains unclear. Genes of the model organism Drosophila melanogaster show high homology to those of mammals, and D. melanogaster has the advantages of short reproductive cycle, easy genetic operation and so on. To explore its toxic mechanism, we studied the effects of excessive salbutamol on genome stability, apoptosis and protein expression in D. melanogaster.【Methods】 After the 3rd instar larvae of the wild type and transgenic rpr-lacZ strains of D. melanogaster were fed with the artificial diet containing 120 μg/mL salbutamon for 2 h, their imaginal discs were dissected for histone H2Av immnofluorescent staining and measurement of the lacZ activity, respectively. Total proteins were extracted from the 3rd instar larvae of the wild type strain treated with salbutamol and separated by SDS-PAGE. 【Results】 Immnofluorescent staining results showed that histone H2Av in some imaginal discs cells of the salbutamol treated D. melanogaster larvae increased significantly as compared with that in the control. With the increment of salbutamol concentration, the lacZ activity of imaginal cells was enhanced in the rpr-lacZ reporter transgenic strain. The SDS-PAGE and MS-MALDI-TOF/TOF results showed that the expression levels of actin and isocitrate dehydrogenase increased in the larvae treated with salbutamol. 【Conclusions】 Salbutamol treatment affects the stability of nuclear DNA, promotes the apoptosis and changes the protein expression in D. melanogaster. Salbutamol might increase actin expression to promote muscle contraction and accelerate energy metabolism.

Key words: Drosophila melanogaster, salbutamol, genome, apoptosis, protein expression