Longitudinal assessment of health-span and pre-death morbidity in wild type Drosophila

Abstract

The increase in human life expectancy is accompanied by age-related cognitive and motor disability, thus raising the demand for strategies toward healthy aging. This requires understanding the biology of normal aging and late-life functional phenotypes. Genetic model organisms, such as Drosophila melanogaster , can help identifying evolutionary conserved mechanisms underlying aging. Longitudinal assessment of motor performance of more than 1000 individual flies revealed age-related motor performance decline and specific late-life motor disabilities. This allows defining heath- and ill-span and scoring late-life quality of individual flies. As in mammals, including humans, onset, duration, severity, and progression dynamics of decline are heterogenic and characterized by both, progressive worsening and sudden late-life events. Flies either become increasingly incapacitated by accumulating disability over multiple days prior to death, or they escape disability until few hours prior to death. Both late-life trajectories converge into a terminal stage characterized by stereotypical signs of functional collapse and death within 3 hours. Drosophila can now be used to evaluate life prolonging manipulations in the context of late-life quality. High sugar diet increases lifespan and late-life quality, whereas lifespan prolonging antioxidant supplementation has either no, or negative effects on late-life quality, depending on base diet and gender.

Age-related changes in Kv4/Shal and Kv1/Shaker expression in Drosophila and a role for reactive oxygen species

“…In contrast, K v 1/Shaker protein exhibits a transient increase at 10 days AE, that then remains relatively stable until an eventual decline at 40 days AE. It should be noted that 40 days AE is still considered middle-aged in a lifespan of laboratory raised flies that can reach 80 days [ 66 ]. As such, these changes in K v 4/Shal and K v 1/Shaker levels in the young to middle-aged fly are likely to have physiologically relevant functional consequences.…”

Social modulation of ageing: mechanisms, ecology, evolution

“…Old people are also at higher risk of biomechanical wear, falling and fracturing [116,117]. Insects can experience similar losses of physical abilities, and old individuals often fly or walk less and spend more time stationary or in a supine position [118]. In Mediterranean fruit flies (Ceratitis capitata), the first occurrence of supine behaviour predicts remaining length of life, like the onset of physical disability correlates with time of death in elderly people [119].…”

“…In Mediterranean fruit flies (Ceratitis capitata), the first occurrence of supine behaviour predicts remaining length of life, like the onset of physical disability correlates with time of death in elderly people [119]. Thus, it has been argued that insects can help identify common principles in the disablement process of ageing as well as assist in the discovery of preclinical markers of disablement [118,120].…”

An Alkaline Protease-Digestion of Silkworm Powder Enhances Its Effects Over Healthspan, Autophagy, and Mitochondria Function in a Rotenone-Induced Drosophila Model

“…Healthspan was applied for the first time in the study of aging using the Caenorhabditis elegans model, and the most relevant to healthy aging of C. elegans is mobility ( 22 ). Similarly, Drosophila also needs to fly or walk to survive, so the most important factor for healthy aging is locomotor ability ( 13 , 14 , 23 , 24 ). Therefore, maintenance of voluntary locomotor ability has been used as the most important factor in determining the healthspan of C. elegans ( 22 ) and Drosophila ( 10 , 13 , 24 ).…”