Research Paper Volume 5, Issue 9 pp 662—681

Figure 1. Intestine-specific expression of ndi1 increases lifespan.

(A) Analysis of NDI1 enzymatic activity in mitochondria isolated from intestines. NDI1 is expressed by transgenic expression of an ndi1 cDNA under control of the intestine-specific TIGS-2 driver (TIGS-2>ndi1). Transgenic expression is induced by exposure of flies to the drug RU486 (100mg/l). Expression of ndi1 is sufficient to confer flavone sensitive, rotenone insensitive NADH dehydrogenase activity to mitochondria isolated from intestines. (***p<0.001, t test, 5 replicates per condition, mitochondria from 10 dissected intestines from female flies per replicate). (B) Survival curves of female TIGS-2>ndi1 flies with or without RU486-mediated transgene induction. Constitutive expression of ndi1 by RU486 exposure (10mg/l during development, 50mg/l during adulthood) increases lifespan (p<0.0001, log-rank test, at least 200 flies per condition). (C) Survival curves of female esgGAL4>ndi1 flies compared to isogenic controls. UAS-ndi1 and the isogenic control strain (w¹¹¹⁸) were crossed to esgGAL4. A 50% increase in mean survival was observed in response to ndi1 expression (p<0.0001, log-rank test, at least 200 flies per condition). (D) Survival curves of female 5961GS>ndi1 flies with or without RU486-mediated transgene induction. Adult-onset expression of ndi1 by RU486 exposure (0.5mg/l) increases fly lifespan (p<0.0001, log-rank test, at least 200 flies per condition).