Figure 6. Over-expression of stress-protective genes in the somatic stem cell lineages extends lifespan.

A. Survival curves of esgGFP>Jafrac1 and esgGFP>Hsp68 flies compared to their respective wild type isogenic controls. UAS lines were backcrossed 10 generation into w ¹¹¹⁸ background. Wild type and UAS siblings were crossed to esgGFP and mortality of the progeny was recorded at 25°C. B. Summary of lifespan statistics including mean and median lifespan (days). C. Over-expression of Jafrac1 and Hsp68 using the 5961GS driver moderately extends lifespan. The mortality of sibling flies (5961GS,GFP>UAS-Jafrac1,UAS-Hsp68) placed on control food or food supplemented with RU486 was compared at 25°C. Due to the weak activity of the 5961GS driver, both UAS-Jafrac1 and UAS-Hsp68 transgenes were combined to observe a significant effect. The relative extension of the median lifespan is shown for all curves. Detailed lifespan analysis is shown in Table S5 and S6.