Figure 4.

Nephrocyte specific gene silencing effects on adult fly survival. (A) Effect of gene silencing on average adult life span. NS associated genes are listed with the corresponding Drosophila ortholog targeted by nephrocyte expression of inhibitory RNAi transgene. Lifespan was assessed in transgenic flies of genotype Dot-Gal4; UAS-Gene_X-IR and Control flies of genotype Dot-Gal4. 50 flies of each genotype were maintained at 29 °C (to increase Gal4 driven RNAi transgene expression) and mortality was recorded every 48 hours until all flies were dead. Experiments were performed in triplicate. The results are presented as average life span (in days). The results are presented as SEM. Statistical significance (*) was defined as P < 0.05. Statistical significance (*) was defined as P < 0.05. Colored histograms correspond to example survival curves shown in B. (B) Example survival curves for flies expressing the indicated gene silencing constructs. The curves correspond to the colored histograms in (A). Mec2 gene silencing was developmentally lethal, with no adult emergence from the pupa stage.