Curcumin extends life span, improves health span, and modulates the expression of age-associated aging genes in Drosophila melanogaster.
Rejuvenation Res, 2010/10;13(5):561-70.
Lee KS[1], Lee BS, Semnani S, Avanesian A, Um CY, Jeon HJ, Seong KM, Yu K, Min KJ, Jafari M
Affiliations
PMID: 20645870DOI: 10.1089/rej.2010.1031
Impact factor: 3.192
Abstract
background: Curcumin, an extract from the rhizome of the plant Curcuma longa (turmeric), has been widely used as a spice and herbal medicine in Asia. It has been suggested to have many biological activities, such as antioxidative, antiinflammatory, anticancer, chemopreventive, and antineurodegenerative properties. We evaluated the impact of curcumin on life span, fecundity, feeding rate, oxidative stress, locomotion, and gene expression in two different wild-type Drosophila melanogaster strains, Canton-S and Ives, under two different experimental conditions.
results: We report that curcumin extended the life span of two different strains of D. melanogaster, an effect that was accompanied by protection against oxidative stress, improvement in locomotion, and chemopreventive effects. Life span extension was gender and genotype specific. Curcumin also modulated the expression of several aging-related genes, including mth, thor, InR, and JNK.
conclusions: The observed positive effects of curcumin on life span and health span in two different D. melanogaster strains demonstrate a potential applicability of curcumin treatment in mammals. The ability of curcumin to mitigate the expression levels of age-associated genes in young flies suggests that the action of curcumin on these genes is a cause, rather than an effect, of its life span-extending effects.
MeSH terms
Aging; Animals; Cluster Analysis; Curcumin; Dietary Supplements; Drosophila melanogaster; Gene Expression Profiling; Gene Expression Regulation; Genes, Insect; Health; Locomotion; Longevity; Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; Oxidative Stress; Protective Agents; Reproducibility of Results; Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; Survival Analysis; Transcription, Genetic
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