2 Joslin Diabetes Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
- At lower temperature (15°C), the daf-2(e1370) mutants are long-lived to the same extent as at higher temperatures (Figure 1). In addition, at lower temperature (15°C) daf-2(e1370) mutants are also stress resistant (Gems et al. 1998).
- The transcription factors DAF-16 and SKN-1 that are phosphorylated directly by IIS, and thereby prohibited from entering the nucleus, are nuclear in daf-2(e1370) mutants at 15°C to the same extent as at higher temperatures (Lin et al. 2001 PMID:11381260; Tullet et al. 2008; Ewald et al. 2015).
These findings suggest that IIS is reduced comparably at 15°C and 25°C and argues against the assumption that e1370 is necessarily a temperature-sensitive allele in the classic sense where temperature affects protein folding and activity. Interestingly, about 10% wild-type worms form dauers when grown at 27°C under otherwise standard culturing conditions (ample food and not overcrowded; (Ailion & Thomas 2000 PMID:11063684)). Furthermore, it has been observed that null mutants in other abnormal-DAuer-Formation (daf) genes than daf-2, only show the dauer phenotype at higher temperatures, suggesting that the dauer phenotype itself is temperature sensitive. This observation was published over 30 years ago (Golden & Riddle 1984) and is discussed in (Wood 1988).
We are motivated to write to the WBG community by the assumption that during adulthood daf-2(e1370) mutants improperly reactive phenotypes that are reminiscent of dauer larvae (reduced mobility, reduced brood-size, short body size; (Gems et al. 1998)). Recently, we have shown that daf-2(e1370) mutants form dauers independent of SKN-1/NRF1,2,3 and that SKN-1 is only required for the daf-2(e1370)-longevity phenotype when these dauer-related phenotypes are not activated during adulthood (Ewald et al. 2015). Furthermore, comparing expression profiles of daf-2(e1370) mutants with dauer larvae revealed that they share only a common overlap under conditions that reactivate these dauer phenotypes (e.g., daf-2(e1370) at higher but not at lower temperatures; (Ruzanov et al. 2007 PMID:17543485; McElwee et al. 2004 PMID:15308663; Ewald et al. 2015)). Finally, treating wild-type worms with dauer pheromone was sufficient to increase lifespan (Kawano et al. 2005 PMID:16377915; Ewald et al. 2015). This suggests that there might be a dauer program activated in daf-2(e1370) mutants at higher temperatures that masks other underlying mechanisms of reduced IIS on lifespan. Further research is required, however, these findings suggest that reduced IIS can extend lifespan via dauer-dependent and dauer-independent mechanisms and this changes the interpretation of experiments performed with daf-2(e1370) mutants under conditions that promote these dauer-associated phenotypes.
References
Ewald, C.Y. et al., 2015. Dauer-independent insulin/IGF-1-signalling implicates collagen remodelling in longevity. Nature, 519(7541), pp.97–101.
Gems, D. et al., 1998. Two pleiotropic classes of daf-2 mutation affect larval arrest, adult behavior, reproduction and longevity in Caenorhabditis elegans. Genetics, 150(1), pp.129–155.
Golden, J.W. & Riddle, D.L., 1984. A pheromone-induced developmental switch in Caenorhabditis elegans: Temperature-sensitive mutants reveal a wild-type temperature-dependent process. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 81(3), pp.819–823.
Tullet, J.M.A. et al., 2008. Direct inhibition of the longevity-promoting factor SKN-1 by insulin-like signaling in C. elegans. Cell, 132(6), pp.1025–1038.
Wood, W.B. ed., 1988. The Nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. 1st ed., Cold Spring Harbor Monograph Series.