| 1. |
- Burger, Joep M. S., et al.
(författare)
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Dietary restriction affects lifespan but not cognitive aging in Drosophila melanogaster
- 2010
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Ingår i: Aging Cell. - : Wiley. - 1474-9718 .- 1474-9726. ; 9:3, s. 327-335
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Dietary restriction extends lifespan in a wide variety of animals, including Drosophila, but its relationship to functional and cognitive aging is unclear. Here, we study the effects of dietary yeast content on fly performance in an aversive learning task (association between odor and mechanical shock). Learning performance declined at old age, but 50-day-old dietary-restricted flies learned as poorly as equal-aged flies maintained on yeast-rich diet, even though the former lived on average 9 days (14%) longer. Furthermore, at the middle age of 21 days, flies on low-yeast diets showed poorer short-term (5 min) memory than flies on rich diet. In contrast, dietary restriction enhanced 60-min memory of young (5 days old) flies. Thus, while dietary restriction had complex effects on learning performance in young to middle-aged flies, it did not attenuate aging-related decline of aversive learning performance. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that, in Drosophila, dietary restriction reduces mortality and thus leads to lifespan extension, but does not affect the rate with which somatic damage relevant for cognitive performance accumulates with age.
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| 2. |
- Erkosar, Berra, et al.
(författare)
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Host diet mediates a negative relationship between abundance and diversity of Drosophila gut microbiota
- 2018
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Ingår i: Ecology and Evolution. - : WILEY. - 2045-7758. ; 8:18, s. 9491-9502
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Nutrient supply to ecosystems has major effects on ecological diversity, but it is unclear to what degree the shape of this relationship is general versus dependent on the specific environment or community. Although the diet composition in terms of the source or proportions of different nutrient types is known to affect gut microbiota composition, the relationship between the quantity of nutrients supplied and the abundance and diversity of the intestinal microbial community remains to be elucidated. Here, we address this relationship using replicate populations of Drosophila melanogaster maintained over multiple generations on three diets differing in the concentration of yeast (the only source of most nutrients). While a 6.5-fold increase in yeast concentration led to a 100-fold increase in the total abundance of gut microbes, it caused a major decrease in their alpha diversity (by 45-60% depending on the diversity measure). This was accompanied by only minor shifts in the taxonomic affiliation of the most common operational taxonomic units (OTUs). Thus, nutrient concentration in host diet mediates a strong negative relationship between the nutrient abundance and microbial diversity in the Drosophila gut ecosystem.
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| 3. |
- Zwoinska, Martyna K., et al.
(författare)
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Experimental evolution of slowed cognitive aging in Drosophila melanogaster
- 2017
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Ingår i: Evolution. - : WILEY. - 0014-3820 .- 1558-5646. ; 71:3, s. 662-670
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Reproductive output and cognitive performance decline in parallel during aging, but it is unknown whether this reflects a shared genetic architecture or merely the declining force of natural selection acting independently on both traits. We used experimental evolution in Drosophila melanogaster to test for the presence of genetic variation for slowed cognitive aging, and assess its independence from that responsible for other traits' decline with age. Replicate experimental populations experienced either joint selection on learning and reproduction at old age (Old + Learning), selection on late-life reproduction alone (Old), or a standard two-week culture regime (Young). Within 20 generations, the Old + Learning populations evolved a slower decline in learning with age than both the Old and Young populations, revealing genetic variation for cognitive aging. We found little evidence for a genetic correlation between cognitive and demographic aging: although the Old + Learning populations tended to show higher late-life fecundity than Old populations, they did not live longer. Likewise, selection for late reproduction alone did not result in improved late-life learning. Our results demonstrate that Drosophila harbor genetic variation for cognitive aging that is largely independent from genetic variation for demographic aging and suggest that these two aspects of aging may not necessarily follow the same trajectories.
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