Research Paper|Volume 10, Issue 9|pp 2428—2458

Effects of N-acetyl-L-cysteine on lifespan, locomotor activity and stress-resistance of 3 Drosophila species with different lifespans

Mikhail V. Shaposhnikov^1,², Nadezhda V. Zemskaya², Liubov A. Koval², Eugenia V. Schegoleva², Alex Zhavoronkov^3,⁴, Alexey A. Moskalev^1,^2,⁴

¹Engelhardt Institute of Molecular Biology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 119991, Russia
²Institute of Biology of Komi Science Center of Ural Branch of RAS, Syktyvkar 167982, Russia
³Insilico Medicine, Inc, JHU, Rockville, MD 21218, USA
⁴Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Dolgoprudny 141700, Russia

Received: August 7, 2018Accepted: September 13, 2018Published: September 20, 2018

https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.101561

Copyright: © 2018 Shaposhnikov et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

N-acetyl-L-cysteine (NAC) is a derivative of the sulphur-containing amino acid L-cysteine with potential anti-aging properties. We studied 3 Drosophila species with contrast longevity differences (D. virilis is longest-lived, D. kikkawai is shortest-lived and D. melanogaster has moderate lifespan) to test the effects of NAC at 8 different concentrations (from 10 nM to 100 mM) on the lifespan, stress-resistance and locomotor activity. Except the adverse effects of highest (10 mM and 100 mM) concentrations NAC demonstrated sexually opposite and male-biased effects on Drosophila lifespan, stress-resistance and locomotor activity and not satisfied the criteria of a geroprotector in terms of the reproducibility of lifespan extending effects in different model organisms. The concentration- and sex-dependent changes in the relative expression levels of the antioxidant genes (Cat/CG6871 and Sod1/CG11793) and genes involved in hydrogen sulfide biosynthesis (Cbs/CG1753, Eip55E/CG5345 and Nfs1/CG12264) suggest the involvement of hormetic mechanisms in the geroprotective effects of NAC.