Drosophila aging 2006/2007

Abstract

Research on aging in Drosophila continues to provide new insights into this complex process. Drosophila is highly amenable to study aging because of its short generation time, comprehensive resources for genetic manipulation, and functionally conserved physiology. Importantly, many of these physiological processes such as heart function, sleep, and metabolism functionally senescence in older flies. As the evolutionarily conserved insulin and TOR pathways are critical regulators of aging, the influence of insulin and TOR signaling on these processes is an important area for future research. An important emerging theme is determining the age-dependent alterations that occur at the organ level and how this functional senescence is regulated by different tissues.

Figure 1. Sleep is disrupted in older flies

Average sleep bout duration declines with age (black), while the number of nighttime awakenings increases.

Figure 2. M-mode traces prepared from high speed movies of dissected flies

A 1 pixel-wide region with both edges of the heart tube is defined in a single movie frame. Same regions are electronically cut from all of the frames in the movie and aligned horizontally to produce the trace. A regular heart beat is seen in young flies (at 1 week of age; top trace). Arrhythmic heart beats are evident in old flies (at 5 weeks of age; bottom trace). For quantitative analysis, see Ocorr et al 2007a.