Biological and Behavioral Responses of Drosophila melanogaster to Dietary Sugar and Sucralose.

Sugar and sucralose are frequently used together and separately in human food and beverages, which is the reason why studying their biological action on different organisms is really important. Nevertheless, the effect of highly concentrated sugar diet on male infertility is still under evaluation. The most important is that biological activity of sucralose, a chloroorganic synthetic sweetener, is highly persistent and difficultly altered in the environment, as its influence on the biological activity of other substances has not been completely elucidated yet. For this reason, in this work, sugar and sucralose-sugar mixtures, frequently used in beverages and other food products, influence Drosophila melanogaster behavior, longevity, reproductive performance, and genomic integrity is investigated. It has been demonstrated that an increase in sugar concentration promotes biological viability by enhancing prolificacy, lifespan, and locomotor performance. However, this only occurs up to a certain threshold concentration; beyond this, metabolic imbalance occurs. The presence of sucralose in solutions further augments the toxic effect, indicating high genotoxicity of the sweetener at doses over 0.5%, leading to significant DNA alterations and changing the Drosophila melanogaster behavior pattern. Therefore, either sugar or sucralose metabolic impact and toxicity is dose-related and their common presence in the solution might lead to the synergetic effect.