Project description:This SuperSeries is composed of the following subset Series: GSE24992: Drosophila brain microRNA expression with age: miRNA profiling GSE25007: Drosophila brain gene expression with age: mRNA profiling GSE25008: Drosophila brain gene expression between wildtype and miR-34 null flies Refer to individual Series. Aging is the most prominent risk factor for human neurodegenerative disease, but underlying mechanisms that connect two processes are less well characterized. With age, the brain undergoes functional decline and perhaps degeneration. Such decline may not just contribute to normal aging, but also enhance susceptibility to and progression of age-related neurodegenerative diseases. Therefore, defining intrinsic factors and pathways that underline the normal integrity of the adult nervous system may lead to insights that potentially link aging and neurodegeneration. Here, we report a highly conserved microRNA (miRNA), miR-34, as a modulator of aging and neurodegeneration. Using Drosophila, we show that fly miR-34 expression is brain-enriched and strikingly upregulated with age. Functional studies reveal that, whereas animals without miR-34 are normal as young adults, upon aging, they gradually show late-onset deficits characteristic of accelerated brain aging; these include a transcriptional signature of aged animals, coupled with rapid functional decline, loss of brain integrity, followed by a catastrophic decline in adult viability. Moreover, upregulation of miR-34 protects against neurodegeneration induced by pathogenic human polyglutamine (polyQ) disease protein. We next reveal a dramatic effect of miR-34 to silence the Eip74EF gene of steroid hormone pathways in the adult, which is crucial to maintain the normal aging. Collectively, these data define a miR-34-mediated mechanism that specifically affects long-term integrity of the adult nervous system. miR-34 function in Drosophila may thus present a link that functionally connects aging and neurodegeneration. Our studies implicate essential roles of miRNA- dependent pathways in maintenance of the adult brain, disease pathogenesis and healthy aging.
Project description:Dysregulation of adenosine (Ado) homeostasis has been observed in both rodent models and human patients of Huntington’s disease (HD). However, the underlying mechanisms of Ado signaling in HD pathogenesis is still unclear. In this study we examined influence of Ado signaling on Drosophila HD model. We further examined the transcription profile of AdoR mutants by microarray analysis to identified a downstream target of AdoR signaling, which mediates the AdoR effects on HD pathology. Our findings have important implications for the crosstalk between Ado signaling and pathogenic effects of HD as well as other human diseases associated with polyglutamine aggregation.
Project description:we performed proteome sequencing in Drosophila at day 7 (young) and day 42 (old) under dietary restriction (DR)and ad libitum (AL) conditions.
Project description:The innate immune response of insects relies on several humoral and cellular mechanisms that require the activation of circulating proteases in the hemolymph to be functional. Here, we analyzed the gelatinase and caseinase activities of Drosophila larval hemolymph under normal and pathogenic conditions (bacterial lipopolysaccharides or endoparasitoid Leptopilina boulardi) using in gel zymography. Gelatinase activity was more intense than caseinase activity and qualitative and quantitative variations were observed between D. melanogaster strains and Drosophila species. Mass spectrometry identified a large number of serine proteases in gel bands equivalent to the major gelatinase and caseinase bands and of these, the most abundant and redundant were Tequila and members of the Jonah and Trypsin protease families. However, hemolymph from Tequila null mutant larvae showed no obvious changes in zymographic bands. Nor did we observe any significant changes in hemolymph gelatinases activity 24 h after injection of bacterial lipopolysaccharides or after oviposition by endoparasitoid wasps. These data confirmed that many serine proteases are present in Drosophila larval hemolymph but those with gelatinase and caseinase activity may not change drastically during the immune response.