Katherine Lukasik
Pronouns: she/her
Research Mentor(s): Scott Leiser
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Molecular and integrative Physiology / Medicine
Program:
Authors: Safa Beydoun, Katherine Lukasik, Scott Leiser
Session: Session 5: 2:40 pm – 3:30 pm
Poster: 50
Abstract
In Caenorhabditis elegans, interventions including dietary restriction (DR) and hypoxia contribute to an elongated lifespan. Surprisingly, we find similar life-extending effects not only under dietary restriction, but when the bacterial food source (E. coli) is over-concentrated. However, the underlying mechanisms that increase nematode longevity in the presence of over-concentrated bacteria remains unknown. The purpose of this study is to identify whether food concentration-mediated lifespan extension is dependent on the hypoxia or DR pathways, or if it is extending lifespan via an alternative mechanism. Imaging and quantification techniques were used to analyze reporters for hypoxia (nhr-57p::GFP) and DR (fmo-2p::mCherry) to determine whether concentrated food induces one or both of these pathways. To determine the mechanism by which over-concentration of food results in lifespan extension, we also utilized mutants within the DR and hypoxia pathways fed various concentrations of bacterial food. The imaging data demonstrate that the DR pathway reporter is not induced in concentrated food, suggesting that life extension is not due to induction of fmo-2. However, over-concentrated food did result in an induction of nhr-57, consistent with activation of the hypoxic pathway to generate the elongated lifespan. The implications of these results suggest that concentrated food can confound lifespan experiments due to an induction of a hypoxic environment.
