Dataset Information

Specific age-related signatures in Drosophila body parts transcriptome.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: During the last two decades progress in the genetics of aging in invertebrate models such as C. elegans and D. melanogaster has clearly demonstrated the existence of regulatory pathways that control the rate of aging in these organisms, such as the insulin-like pathway, the Jun kinase pathway and the Sir2 deacetylase pathway. Moreover, it was rapidly shown that some of these pathways are conserved from yeast to humans. In parallel to genetic studies, genomic expression approaches have given us significant information on the gene expression modifications that occur during aging either in wild type or long-lived mutant animals. But most of the genomic studies of invertebrate models have been performed so far on whole animals, while several recent studies in mammals have shown that the effects of aging are tissue specific. RESULTS: We used oligonucleotide microarrays to address the specificities of transcriptional responses in aging Drosophila in head, thorax or whole body. These fly parts are enriched in transcripts that represent different and complementary sets of genes. We present evidence for both specific and common transcriptional responses during the aging process in these tissues. About half of the genes described as downregulated with age are linked to reproduction and enriched in gonads. Greater downregulation of mitochondrial genes, activation of the JNK pathway and upregulation of proteasome subunits in the thorax of aged flies all suggest that muscle may be particularly sensitive to aging. Simultaneous age-related impairment of synaptic transmission gene expression is observed in fly heads. In addition, a detailed comparison with other microarray data indicates that in aged flies there are significant deviations from the canonical responses to oxidative stress and immune stress. CONCLUSION: Our data demonstrates the advantages and value of regionalized and comparative analysis of gene expression in aging animals. Adding to the age-regulated genes already identified in whole animal studies, it provides lists of new regionalized genes to be studied for their functional role in the aging process. This work also emphasizes the need for such experiments to reveal in greater detail the consequences of the transcriptional modifications induced by aging regulatory pathways.

SUBMITTER: Girardot F

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1481561 | biostudies-literature | 2006

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Specific age-related signatures in Drosophila body parts transcriptome.

Girardot Fabrice F Lasbleiz Christelle C Monnier Véronique V Tricoire Hervé H

BMC genomics 20060404

<h4>Background</h4>During the last two decades progress in the genetics of aging in invertebrate models such as C. elegans and D. melanogaster has clearly demonstrated the existence of regulatory pathways that control the rate of aging in these organisms, such as the insulin-like pathway, the Jun kinase pathway and the Sir2 deacetylase pathway. Moreover, it was rapidly shown that some of these pathways are conserved from yeast to humans. In parallel to genetic studies, genomic expression approac ...[more]

PMID: 16584578

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Project description:BackgroundUnderstanding animal development and physiology at a molecular-biological level has been advanced by the ability to determine at high resolution the repertoire of mRNA molecules by whole transcriptome resequencing. This includes the ability to detect and quantify rare abundance transcripts and isoform-specific mRNA variants produced from a gene.The sex hierarchy consists of a pre-mRNA splicing cascade that directs the production of sex-specific transcription factors that specify nearly all sexual dimorphism. We have used deep RNA sequencing to gain insight into how the Drosophila sex hierarchy generates somatic sex differences, by examining gene and transcript isoform expression differences between the sexes in adult head tissues.ResultsHere we find 1,381 genes that differ in overall expression levels and 1,370 isoform-specific transcripts that differ between males and females. Additionally, we find 512 genes not regulated downstream of transformer that are significantly more highly expressed in males than females. These 512 genes are enriched on the × chromosome and reside adjacent to dosage compensation complex entry sites, which taken together suggests that their residence on the × chromosome might be sufficient to confer male-biased expression. There are no transcription unit structural features, from a set of features, that are robustly significantly different in the genes with significant sex differences in the ratio of isoform-specific transcripts, as compared to random isoform-specific transcripts, suggesting that there is no single molecular mechanism that generates isoform-specific transcript differences between the sexes, even though the sex hierarchy is known to include three pre-mRNA splicing factors.ConclusionsWe identify thousands of genes that show sex-specific differences in overall gene expression levels, and identify hundreds of additional genes that have differences in the abundance of isoform-specific transcripts. No transcription unit structural feature was robustly enriched in the sex-differentially expressed transcript isoforms. Additionally, we found that many genes with male-biased expression were enriched on the × chromosome and reside adjacent to dosage compensation entry sites, suggesting that differences in sex chromosome composition contributes to dimorphism in gene expression. Taken together, this study provides new insight into the molecular underpinnings of sexual differentiation.

Dataset Information

Specific age-related signatures in Drosophila body parts transcriptome.

Publications

Specific age-related signatures in Drosophila body parts transcriptome.

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