Formaldehyde Affecting Lifespan and Stress Resistance in Drosophila

Abstract

Longevity is a fundamental and fascinating topic in the contemporary biological studies. A lot of genes, signaling pathways, and transcription factors were reported to affect lifespan from yeast to human. Formaldehyde participates in the epigenetic regulating roles on methylation and demethylation of DNA, RNA, and histone and exerts various toxic effects from animals to human at higher concentrations, while the effects of lower concentrations were rarely reported. We used Drosophila as a model organism to study the effects of formaldehyde at various concentrations on longevity and found that different concentrations of formaldehyde played different roles on lifespan and stress resistance in Drosophila. Since knocking down the expression level of formaldehyde dehydrogenase (FDH) in the neural system of Drosophila could also extend lifespan and increase stress resistance, it is a hopeful way to screen for the genes in the Drosophila neural system to study the probable molecular mechanisms of longevity. In this chapter, we reviewed the progress of lifespan study in Drosophila and its relationship with formaldehyde and formaldehyde dehydrogenase.