family gene expression does not increase

One of the most striking patterns in comparative biology is the negative correlation between lifespan and fecundity observed in comparisons among species. This pattern is consistent with the idea that organisms need to allocate a fixed energy budget among competing demands of growth, development, reproduction and somatic maintenance. However, exceptions to this pattern have been observed in many social insects, including ants, bees, and termites. In honey bees ( ), ( ), a yolk protein precursor, has Apis mellifera Vitellogenin Vg been implicated in mediating the long lifespan and high fecundity of queen bees. To determine if -like proteins can regulate lifespan in insects generally, Vg we examined the effects of expression of and (a Apis Vg Drosophila CG31150 -like gene recently identified as ) on lifespan Vg cv-d Drosophila melanogaster and fecundity using the RU486-inducible GeneSwitch system. For all genotypes tested, overexpression of and decreased Vg CG31150 Drosophila lifespan and did not affect total or age-specific fecundity. We also detected an apparent effect of the GeneSwitch system itself, wherein RU486 exposure (or the GAL4 expression it induces) led to a significant increase in longevity and decrease in fecundity in our fly strains. This result is consistent with the pattern reported in a recent meta-analysis of aging studies, where Drosophila transgenic constructs of the UAS/GAL4 expression system that should have no effect (e.g. an uninduced GeneSwitch) significantly extended lifespan in some genetic backgrounds. Our results suggest that family genes are not major Vgregulators of life history traits, and highlight the importance of using Drosophila appropriate controls in aging studies. Yingxue Ren ( ) Corresponding author: [email protected] Ren Y and Hughes KA. How to cite this article: family gene expression does not increase lifespan or fecundity Vitellogenin Drosophila 2014, :125 (doi: ) [version 1; referees: 2 approved] F1000Research 3 10.12688/f1000research.3975.1 © 2014 Ren Y and Hughes KA. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Copyright: Creative Commons Attribution Licence , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Data associated with the article are available under the terms of the (CC0 1.0 Public domain dedication). Creative Commons Zero "No rights reserved" data waiver This research was supported by National Science Foundation grant DEB 0848337 and National Institutes of Health grant Grant information: AG022824 to KAH. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing interests: No competing interests were disclosed. 10 Jun 2014, :125 (doi: ) First published: 3 10.12688/f1000research.3975.1 Referee Status: