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Research Paper|Volume 15, Issue 6|pp 1748—1767

RNA virus-mediated changes in organismal oxygen consumption rate in young and old Drosophila melanogaster males

Eli Hagedorn1,2, Dean Bunnell1, Beate Henschel3, Daniel L. Smith Jr.4,5, Stephanie Dickinson3, Andrew W. Brown6,7, Maria De Luca4, Ashley N. Turner8, Stanislava Chtarbanova1,5,9,10
  • 1Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35401, USA
  • 2Present Address: Indiana University School of Medicine-Indianapolis, Medical Scientist Training Program, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA
  • 3Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Indiana University School of Public Health-Bloomington, Biostatistics Consulting Center, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA
  • 4Department of Nutrition Sciences, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35233, USA
  • 5Nathan Shock Center of Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA
  • 6Department of Applied Health Sciences, Indiana University, School of Public Health-Bloomington, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA
  • 7Present Address: University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and Arkansas Children’s Research Institute, Little Rock, AR 72202, USA
  • 8Department of Biology, Jacksonville State University, Jacksonville, AL 36265, USA
  • 9Center for Convergent Bioscience and Medicine, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35401, USA
  • 10Alabama Life Research Institute, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35401, USA
* Equal contribution
Received: October 20, 2022Accepted: February 20, 2023Published: March 22, 2023
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.204593

Copyright: © 2023 Hagedorn 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

Aging is accompanied by increased susceptibility to infections including with viral pathogens resulting in higher morbidity and mortality among the elderly. Significant changes in host metabolism can take place following virus infection. Efficient immune responses are energetically costly, and viruses divert host molecular resources to promote their own replication. Virus-induced metabolic reprogramming could impact infection outcomes, however, how this is affected by aging and impacts organismal survival remains poorly understood. RNA virus infection of Drosophila melanogaster with Flock House virus (FHV) is an effective model to study antiviral responses with age, where older flies die faster than younger flies due to impaired disease tolerance. Using this aged host-virus model, we conducted longitudinal, single-fly respirometry studies to determine if metabolism impacts infection outcomes. Analysis using linear mixed models on Oxygen Consumption Rate (OCR) following the first 72-hours post-infection showed that FHV modulates respiration, but age has no significant effect on OCR. However, the longitudinal assessment revealed that OCR in young flies progressively and significantly decreases, while OCR in aged flies remains constant throughout the three days of the experiment. Furthermore, we found that the OCR signature at 24-hours varied in response to both experimental treatment and survival status. FHV-injected flies that died prior to 48- or 72-hours measurements had a lower OCR compared to survivors at 48-hours. Our findings suggest the host’s metabolic profile could influence the outcome of viral infections.