Curcumin-mediated gene expression changes in Drosophila melanogaster

Abstract

Background: Curcumin has been suggested to be useful in the treatment of numerous diseases, including autoinflammation, that has been implicated in some pathological conditions. Experimentally, autoinflammatory phenotypes were observed in the short-lived Peptidoglycan recognition protein LB (PGRP-LB) mutant of Drosophila melanogaster. Objective: This study aimed to determine the effect of curcumin on the expression of ageing-related genes in the autoinflammatory model of D. melanogaster. Method: This study was performed using five test groups including untreated control, solvent control, and three groups given a series of curcumin concentrations: 10 µM, 50 µM, and 250 µM, separately. Survival assay and gene expression studies were carried out on these test groups. Result: The results revealed that the lifespan of the curcumin-treated groups was significantly improved in comparison to the control groups. Such phenotype was accompanied by the increased expression of srl and hsp22 genes in most, if not all, of the curcumin-treated groups and elevated expression of tom40, pepck, and cat genes was specifically detectable only in groups treated with 250 µM curcumin. On the contrary, the expression of indy was significantly reduced upon the administration of curcumin at all given concentrations. Conclusion: Based on these results, it can be inferred that supplementation of curcumin can improve the lifespan of the PGRP-LB mutant flies and this might be related to the changes in the expression of ageing-related genes.