Petrosyan Agavni, Hsieh I-Hui, Saberi Kourosh
Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697-5100, USA.
Behav Genet. 2007 Jul;37(4):585-94. doi: 10.1007/s10519-007-9159-y. Epub 2007 May 30.
Methuselah is a Drosophila mutant with a 35% increased lifespan. We examined the robustness of methuselah's sensorimotor abilities in tethered flight as a function of age in experiments designed to test visuomotor synchronization and phototaxis in simulated flight. A total of 282 flies from different age groups (4 hours to 70 days) and genotypes (mth and w1118) were individually tethered under an infrared laser-sensor system that digitally recorded wing-beat frequency (WBF). We found that mth has a higher average WBF throughout most of its lifespan compared to parental control flies (w1118) and develops flight ability at a younger age. Its WBF at late life, however, is not significantly different than that of its parental control line. We further found that mth entrains during flight to motion of a visual grating significantly better than its parental line. These findings suggest that the mth gene not only delays chronological aging but enhances sensorimotor abilities critical to survival during early and middle, but not late life.
玛士撒拉（Methuselah）是一种果蝇突变体，其寿命延长了35%。在旨在测试模拟飞行中的视觉运动同步和趋光性的实验中，我们研究了玛士撒拉的感觉运动能力在系留飞行中随年龄的变化情况。共有来自不同年龄组（4小时至70天）和基因型（mth和w1118）的282只果蝇被单独系留在一个红外激光传感器系统下，该系统以数字方式记录翅膀拍击频率（WBF）。我们发现，与亲本对照果蝇（w1118）相比，mth在其大部分寿命期间具有更高的平均WBF，并且在更年轻的时候就发展出飞行能力。然而，它在晚年的WBF与亲本对照品系没有显著差异。我们进一步发现，mth在飞行过程中对视觉光栅运动的同步能力明显优于其亲本品系。这些发现表明，mth基因不仅延缓了时序衰老，而且增强了对早期和中期生存至关重要的感觉运动能力，但对晚年生存并非如此。
