Figure 1.

Caenorhabditis elegans Loses Fat Stores and Its Lifespan Is Extended upon Bacterial Deprivation

Lifespan analyses of wild-type (N2) C. elegans (n > 100 worms) fed ad libitum (AL) or subjected to bacterial deprivation. p < 0.0001. Mantel-Cox log-rank test. Representative of at least 3 replicate experiments (see Table S2 for number of replicates). Light micrographs of representative oil red O (ORO)-stained whole animals (upper panels) and densitometric quantification of staining of the two first intestinal cells after background removal (lower panels) for the indicated C. elegans strains fed AL or subjected to bacterial deprivation (BD) for 1 or 10 days for wild-type animals (A), glp-1(e2141ts) mutant animals (B), and daf-2(e1370) (D). (C) Red arrows show intestinal fat, while black arrows show hypodermis with or without fat. Mean ± SD of n = at least 20 worms. ns, not significant; ^∗∗p < 0.01 and ^∗∗∗p < 0.001 by two-tailed Mann-Whitney U test. Representative of 3 biological replicates. See also Figures S1–S3.