Azot expression in the Drosophila gut modulates organismal lifespan

ABSTRACT

Cell Competition emerged in Drosophila as an unexpected phenomenon, when confronted clones of fit vs unfit cells genetically induced. During the last decade, it has been shown that this mechanism is physiologically active in Drosophila and higher organisms. In Drosophila, Flower (Fwe) eliminates unfit cells during development, regeneration and disease states. Furthermore, studies suggest that Fwe signaling is required to eliminate accumulated unfit cells during adulthood extending Drosophila lifespan. Indeed, ahuizotl (azot) mutants accumulate unfit cells during adulthood and after physical insults in the brain and other epithelial tissues, showing a decrease in organismal lifespan. On the contrary, flies carrying three functional copies of the gene, unfit cell culling seems to be more efficient and show an increase in lifespan. During aging, Azot is required for the elimination of unfit cells, however, the specific organs modulating organismal lifespan by Azot remain unknown. Here we found a potential connection between gut-specific Azot expression and lifespan which may uncover a more widespread organ-specific mechanism modulating organismal survival.

KEYWORDS:

• Cell competition
• cell death
• Azot
• aging
• gut
• lifespan

Acknowledgments

We thank Eduardo Moreno and Heinrich Jasper for sharing reagents and Drosophila lines. M. Merino was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) (SystemsX.ch, Transition Postdoc Fellowship) and Novartis Foundation Fellowships.

We apologize to all colleagues whose work has not been unintentionally cited.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).