Fig 1. skn-1 regulates lifespan primarily from late larval development through early adulthood.

(A-B) The lifespan of wild type animals (WT, strain N2) treated from hatching with empty vector bacteria (EV, control), skn-1 RNAi, or transferred from EV bacteria onto skn-1 RNAi either during developmental stages L2 or L4 (A), or at day 1, 5, or 9 of adulthood (B) was measured. Worms treated with skn-1 RNAi throughout life, or during developmental stages L2 or L4 showed significant reductions in lifespan (10.75%, 11.80%, and 14.23%, respectively, S1 Table). Worms treated with skn-1 RNAi from day 1 or 5 of adulthood showed a trend of reduction in lifespan, though the observed lifespan shortening was not significant (S1 Table). Treating worms with skn-1 RNAi from day 9 of adulthood did not affect lifespan (S1 Table). (C) CF512 animals were grown throughout life on EV or skn-1 RNAi bacteria or let hatch on EV bacteria and transferred onto skn-1 RNAi bacteria at day 1 of adulthood. Lifespans of all groups were followed daily. The knockdown of skn-1 from day 1 of adulthood resulted in a significant shortening of lifespan compared to untreated animals (S2A and S2B Table). (D-E) The knockdown of skn-1 throughout life or from day 1 of adulthood, resulted in lifespan shortening of daf-2 (e1370) mutant worms (strain CB1370, D and S3A and S3B Table) and of eat-2 (strain DA1116) mutant animals (D and S4A and S4B Table).