Figure 3.

PBA inspires maintenance of locomotor ability and resistance to stress. For each experiment, n = 80 w¹¹¹⁸ flies, repeated four times. (Left) Virgin females; (Right) males. In all these paradigms, both male and female PBA-treated flies showed superior performance. (a) Locomotor ability assayed by climbing test for three transfers in a “counter current distribution” apparatus (41) held vertically. Flies that climbed to the upper tube three times out of three trials were counted as positive. Flies were maintained at 29°C for 10 days with or without PBA before testing. (b) Resistance to dry starvation. Flies raised for 10 days at 25°C with or without 10 mM PBA were put into empty vials to test their survival measured vs. time. (c) Resistance to paraquat, a free-radical generator. Flies raised for 10 days at 25°C with or without 10 mM PBA were first deprived of water in an empty vial for 3 h, then transferred to a vial containing filter paper wetted with 350 μl of 20 mM paraquat in 5% sucrose. Values represent mean ± SD for the four runs. Student's t test was used to analyze the significant difference between controls and PBA-treated flies.