Ma, SimingAvanesov, Andrei S.Porter, EmilyLee, Byung CheonMariotti, Marco, 1984-Zemskaya, NadezhdaGuigó Serra, RodericMoskalev, Alexey A.Gladyshev, Vadim N.2018-11-092018-11-092018Ma S, Avanesov AS, Porter E, Lee BC, Mariotti M, Zemskaya N et al. Comparative transcriptomics across 14 Drosophila species reveals signatures of longevity. Aging Cell. 2018;17(4):e12740. DOI: 10.1111/acel.127401474-9718http://hdl.handle.net/10230/35721Lifespan varies dramatically among species, but the biological basis is not well understood. Previous studies in model organisms revealed the importance of nutrient sensing, mTOR, NAD/sirtuins, and insulin/IGF1 signaling in lifespan control. By studying life‐history traits and transcriptomes of 14 Drosophila species differing more than sixfold in lifespan, we explored expression divergence and identified genes and processes that correlate with longevity. These longevity signatures suggested that longer‐lived flies upregulate fatty acid metabolism, downregulate neuronal system development and activin signaling, and alter dynamics of RNA splicing. Interestingly, these gene expression patterns resembled those of flies under dietary restriction and several other lifespan‐extending interventions, although on the individual gene level, there was no significant overlap with genes previously reported to have lifespan‐extension effects. We experimentally tested the lifespan regulation potential of several candidate genes and found no consistent effects, suggesting that individual genes generally do not explain the observed longevity patterns. Instead, it appears that lifespan regulation across species is modulated by complex relationships at the system level represented by global gene expressionapplication/pdfeng© 2018 The Authors. Aging Cell published by the Anatomical Society and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.info:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1111/acel.12740AgingGene expressionLifespanDrosophilainfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess