TY - JOUR
T1 - Mating reverses actuarial aging in female Queensland fruit flies
AU - Yap, Sarsha
AU - Fanson, Benjamin G.
AU - Taylor, Phillip W.
N1 - Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.
PY - 2015/7/6
Y1 - 2015/7/6
N2 - Animals that have a long pre-reproductive adult stage often employ mechanisms that minimize aging over this period in order to preserve reproductive lifespan. In a remarkable exception, one tephritid fruit fly exhibits substantial pre-reproductive aging but then mitigates this aging during a diet-dependent transition to the reproductive stage, after which life expectancy matches that of newly emerged flies. Here, we ascertain the role of nutrients, sexual maturation and mating in mitigation of previous aging in female Queensland fruit flies. Flies were provided one of three diets: 'sugar', 'essential', or 'yeast-sugar'. Essential diet contained sugar and micronutrients found in yeast but lacked maturation-enabling protein. At days 20 and 30, a subset of flies on the sugar diet were switched to essential or yeast-sugar diet, and some yeast-sugar fed flies were mated 10 days later. Complete mitigation of actuarial aging was only observed in flies that were switched to a yeast-sugar diet and mated, indicating that mating is key. Identifying the physiological processes associated with mating promise novel insights into repair mechanisms for aging.
AB - Animals that have a long pre-reproductive adult stage often employ mechanisms that minimize aging over this period in order to preserve reproductive lifespan. In a remarkable exception, one tephritid fruit fly exhibits substantial pre-reproductive aging but then mitigates this aging during a diet-dependent transition to the reproductive stage, after which life expectancy matches that of newly emerged flies. Here, we ascertain the role of nutrients, sexual maturation and mating in mitigation of previous aging in female Queensland fruit flies. Flies were provided one of three diets: 'sugar', 'essential', or 'yeast-sugar'. Essential diet contained sugar and micronutrients found in yeast but lacked maturation-enabling protein. At days 20 and 30, a subset of flies on the sugar diet were switched to essential or yeast-sugar diet, and some yeast-sugar fed flies were mated 10 days later. Complete mitigation of actuarial aging was only observed in flies that were switched to a yeast-sugar diet and mated, indicating that mating is key. Identifying the physiological processes associated with mating promise novel insights into repair mechanisms for aging.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84940100146&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0132486
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0132486
M3 - Article
C2 - 26147734
AN - SCOPUS:84940100146
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 10
SP - 1
EP - 12
JO - PLoS ONE
JF - PLoS ONE
IS - 7
M1 - e0132486
ER -