ABSTRACT
The longevity of Drosophila strains has been investigated after treatment by a hormone 20-hydroxyecdysone (80% solution) and a phytoecdysteroid-containing metaverone preparation (contains 5-7% of 20-hydroxyecdysone) in preimaginal stages of development. It is shown, that life expectancy of ecdysone-deficient woc strain exceeds life expectancy of wild type Canton-S strain by 46%, whereas ecdysone or metaverone treatment removes these distinctions. At the same time, treatment by ecdysteroid-containing preparations of Canton-S has not induced any essential alteration of life span. Thus, the new ageing gene woc has been discovered, the woc mutation essentially increases the life span of Drosophila, and its effect is mediated by a hormone 20-hydroxyecdysone and has the threshold corresponding natural physiological concentration of this hormone in an insect organism. The data have confirmed the conception of "antagonistic pleiotropy" according to which only mutations having advantages during the prereproductive and reproductive period are fixed in evolution, and their negative effect is delayed up to a postreproductive stage of life cycle. As a result we can see accumulation with age of structural and functional damages which increase probability of death. Indeed, genes of ecdysone synthesis play fundamentally important role in early development and sexual reproduction of insects, however essentially reduce their life span.