Abstract
The process of aging can be described as a progressive decline in an organism's function that invariably results in death. This decline results from the activities of intrinsic genetic factors within an organism. The relative contributions of the biological and environmental components to senescence are hard to measure, however different strategies have been devised in Drosophila melanogaster to isolate and identify genetic influences on aging. These strategies include selective breeding, quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping and single gene mutant analysis. Selective breeding effectively demonstrated a genetic, heritable component to aging while QTL mapping located regions within the Drosophila genome carrying loci that influence the aging process. Within the past decade, single gene mutant analysis has facilitated the identification of specific genes whose activities play a determinative role in Drosophila aging. This review will focus on the application of selective breeding, QTL mapping and single gene mutant analysis used in Drosophila to study aging as well as the results obtained through these strategies to date.
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Abbreviations
- CuZn:
-
copper/zinc
- DTT:
-
DJ651-driven tetanus toxin
- FLP:
-
flippase
- FRT:
-
FLP recognition target
- GPCR:
-
(G-protein)-coupled receptor
- Hsp:
-
heat shock protein
- Indy:
-
I'm not dead yet
- JNK:
-
c-Jun N-terminal kinase
- LD:
-
linkage disequilibrium
- PdL:
-
Ponce de Leon
- QTL:
-
quantitative trait Loci
- RI:
-
recombinant inbred
- rtTA:
-
reverse tetracycline trans-activator
- Sir2:
-
silent information regulator 2
- SOD:
-
superoxide dismutase
- TetO:
-
tetracycline operator
- TOR:
-
target of rapamycin
- UAS:
-
upstream activating sequence
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Poirier, L., Seroude, L. Genetic approaches to study aging in Drosophila melanogaster . AGE 27, 165–182 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11357-005-2919-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11357-005-2919-9