Abstract
Agar oligosaccharide (AOS) is a marine prebiotic with apparent anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and anti-tumor effects. During this study, different doses of AOS are added to a basal diet to evaluate its effects on the lifespan, motor vigor and reproduction of male Drosophila melanogaster. Additionally, the activities of Cu,Zn-superoxide dismutase (Cu,Zn-SOD) and catalase (CAT) and the malondialdehyde (MDA) content in male Drosophila are examined on the 10th, 25th and 40th days. The fly midguts are removed on the 10th and 40th days for analyses of the intestinal microbial community by 16S rDNA sequencing and the expression level of intestinal immunity genes by quantitative real-time PCR (RT-PCR). The results show that AOS significantly prolonged the average and maximum lifespan and increased the antioxidant capacity of male Drosophila. Additionally, AOS significantly regulated the structure of the intestinal flora of "old" flies (40 days) and upregulated the expression of immune deficiency (IMD) genes to improve the intestinal immunity, which could be beneficial for delaying aging in old flies. The above-described results provide a theoretical basis for the application of AOS, a type of marine oligosaccharide, as a nutritional supplement or immunomodulator.
Highlights
Over the past few decades, seaweed has been considered a promising organism that provides novel bioactive substances and compounds essential for human nutrition [1,2]
Agar oligosaccharide (AOS) is the product of degradation of agarose, which can be classified as agarose oligosaccharide or new agarose oligosaccharide depending on the reducing end [5]
These findings indicate that a certain amount of AOS effectively can delay senescence in male fruit flies and that these effects might be partly related to a decrease in reproductive ability
Summary
Over the past few decades, seaweed has been considered a promising organism that provides novel bioactive substances and compounds essential for human nutrition [1,2]. A marine polysaccharide, is constructed from complex saccharide molecules extracted from certain species of red algae [3]. Agarose has long been used in a variety of laboratory and industrial applications (food, medicine and cosmetics), but the complex structure of agarose polysaccharides makes them resistant to degradation by endogenous enzymes in the human gut [4]. Agar oligosaccharide (AOS) is the product of degradation of agarose, which can be classified as agarose oligosaccharide or new agarose oligosaccharide depending on the reducing end [5]. AOS shows better water solubility, easier absorption and other improved physical properties and exhibits biological activities, such as antioxidant activity, anti-tumor, anti-virus and immune activation [6,7,8].
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