Age-related Cardiac Disease Model of Drosophila

We have begun to study the genetic basis of deterioration of cardiac function in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster as an age-related cardiac disease model. For this purpose we have developed heart function assays in Drosophila and found that the fly's cardiac performance, as that of the human heart, deteriorates with age: aging fruit flies exhibit a progressive increase in electrical pacing-induced heart failure as well as in arrhythmias. The insulin receptor and associated pathways have a dramatic and heart-autonomous influence on age-related cardiac performance in flies, suggestive of potentially similar mechanisms in regulating cardiac aging in vertebrates. Compromised KCNQ and KATP ion channel functions also seem to contribute to the decline in heart performance in aging flies, suggesting that the corresponding vertebrate gene functions may similarly decline with age, in addition to their conserved role in protecting against arrhythmias and hypoxia/ischemia, respectively. The fly heart is thus emerging as a promising genetic model for studying the age-dependent decline in organ function.