INCREASED LONGEVITY AND RESISTANCE TO HEAT-SHOCK IN DROSOPHILA-MELANOGASTER FLIES EXPOSED TO HYPERGRAVITY

In recent years, attempts have been made to increase longevity in anim al models (caloric restriction in rodents or overexpression of catalas e and superoxide dismutase in transgenic flies, for instance). We repo rt here that flies submitted to hypergravity (3 or 5 g), for 1 or 4 we eks starting from the second day of imaginal life and transferred afte r that time to 1 g, have a higher resistance to heat shock than flies living continuously at 1 g. Furthermore, male flies that had lived for 2 weeks from the second day of life at 3 or 5 g, lived long, than tho se living all the rime at 1 g; no longevity increase was observed in f emales. As far as we know, this is the first example in flies showing that a mild stress at young age not only increases resistance to an ac ute stress but also increases longevity. A hypothesis to explain these results could be that heat-shock proteins, which are induced by vario us stress factors, are synthesized in conditions of hypergravity.