Human ApoD, an apolipoprotein up-regulated in neurodegenerative diseases, extends lifespan and increases stress resistance in Drosophila.

Julien Muffat, David W Walker, Seymour Benzer

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 2008 May 13

filter terms:

Apolipoprotein D (ApoD) expression increases in several neurological disorders and in spinal cord injury. We provide a report of a physiological role for human ApoD (hApoD): Flies overexpressing hApoD are long-lived and protected against stress conditions associated with aging and neurodegeneration, including hyperoxia, dietary paraquat, and heat stress. We show that the fly ortholog, Glial Lazarillo, is strongly up-regulated in response to these extrinsic stresses and also can protect in vitro-cultured cells in situations modeling Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD). In adult flies, hApoD overexpression reduces age-associated lipid peroxide accumulation, suggesting a proximal mechanism of action. Similar data obtained in the mouse [Ganfornina, M.D., et al., (2008) Apolipoprotein D is involved in the mechanisms regulating protection from oxidative stress. Aging Cell 10.1111/j.1474-9726.2008.00395.] as well as in plants (Charron et al., personal communication) suggest that ApoD and its orthologs play an evolutionarily conserved role in response to stress, possibly managing or preventing lipid peroxidation.

Citation

Julien Muffat, David W Walker, Seymour Benzer. Human ApoD, an apolipoprotein up-regulated in neurodegenerative diseases, extends lifespan and increases stress resistance in Drosophila. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 2008 May 13;105(19):7088-93