E. Lebourg et N. Minois, INCREASED LONGEVITY AND RESISTANCE TO HEAT-SHOCK IN DROSOPHILA-MELANOGASTER FLIES EXPOSED TO HYPERGRAVITY, Comptes rendus de l'Academie des sciences. Serie 3, Sciences de la vie, 320(3), 1997, pp. 215-221
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.