Increased longevity and resistance to heat shock in Drosophila melanogaster flies exposed to hypergravity.

In recent years, attempts have been made to increase longevity in animal models (caloric restriction in rodents or overexpression of catalase and superoxide dismutase in transgenic flies, for instance). We report here that flies submitted to hypergravity (3 or 5 g), for 1 or 4 weeks starting from the second day of imaginal life and transferred after that time to 1 g, have a higher resistance to heat shock than flies living continuously at 1 g. Furthermore, male flies that had lived for 2 weeks from the second day of life at 3 or 5 g, lived longer than those living all the time at 1 g; no longevity increase was observed in females. As far as we know, this is the first example in flies showing that a mild stress at a young age not only increases resistance to an acute stress but also increases longevity. A hypothesis to explain these results could be that heat-shock proteins, which are induced by various stress factors, are synthesized in conditions of hypergravity.