Fig. 3. Dsup expression extends C. elegans life span by decreasing mitochondrial respiration.

(A) Heterologous expression of Dsup extends C. elegans life span (left), and its silencing through RNAi suppresses the observed long-live phenotype (right), n = 60 in three independent experiments. (B) Mitochondrial morphology is not affected by the expression of Dsup. Representative image of mitochondrial tubular (normal) and fragmented morphology (left). Number of 24-hour post-L4 larvae stage animals with tubular or fragmented mitochondrial morphology (n = 32 and 31). (C) Dsup expression leads to a strong mitochondrial respiration decrease shown by the OCR, n = 200 in triplicate. Data are means ± SEM, P values were determined using two-tailed Student’s t test. (D) Sodium azide (NaN₃) treatment completely abrogates OCR difference between N2 control and Dsup. The graph represents the aggregation of two separate experiments.