Diet Restriction Induces Heat Shock Gene Expression While Tempering Heat Stress Response in Drosophila melanogaster

Abstract

Diet restriction (DR) in fruit flies mimics the longevity effects that calorie reduction has in other organisms. Long‐lived flies are smaller, have global down regulation of protein levels, and lower fecundity. We predicted that flies on DR food would have a limited ability to respond to heat stress. We used qPCR to measure expression levels of heat shock proteins in Drosophila melanogaster fed control food or diet restricted food at standard or high temperatures. HSP22, HSP70 and HSP83 are known to be upregulated in flies in response to various stressors. We show here that flies under diet restriction have elevated HSP22 and HSP70 expression at standard temperatures and upregulate HSP 83 in response to heat stress.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.