Transcriptome profiling of aging Drosophila photoreceptors reveals gene expression trends that correlate with visual senescence
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Authors
Hall, Hana
Medina, Patrick
Cooper, Daphne A.
Escobedo, Spencer E.
Rounds, Jeremiah
Brennan, Kaelan J.
Vincent, Christopher
Miura, Pedro
Doerge, Rebecca
Weake, Vikki M.
Issue Date
2017
Type
Article
Language
Keywords
Aging , Transcriptome , Drosophila , Neurons , Photoreceptors
Alternative Title
Abstract
Aging is associated with functional decline of neurons and increased incidence of both neurodegenerative and ocular disease. Photoreceptor neurons in Drosophila melanogaster provide a powerful model for studying the molecular changes involved in functional senescence of neurons since decreased visual behavior precedes retinal degeneration. Here, we sought to identify gene expression changes and the genomic features of differentially regulated genes in photoreceptors that contribute to visual senescence. Results: To identify gene expression changes that could lead to visual senescence, we characterized the aging transcriptome of Drosophila sensory neurons highly enriched for photoreceptors. We profiled the nuclear transcriptome of genetically-labeled photoreceptors over a 40 day time course and identified increased expression of genes involved in stress and DNA damage response, and decreased expression of genes required for neuronal function. We further show that combinations of promoter motifs robustly identify age-regulated genes, suggesting that transcription factors are important in driving expression changes in aging photoreceptors. However, long, highly expressed and heavily spliced genes are also more likely to be downregulated with age, indicating that other mechanisms could contribute to expression changes at these genes. Lastly, we identify that circular RNAs (circRNAs) strongly increase during aging in photoreceptors. Conclusions: Overall, we identified changes in gene expression in aging Drosophila photoreceptors that could account for visual senescence. Further, we show that genomic features predict these age-related changes, suggesting potential mechanisms that could be targeted to slow the rate of age-associated visual decline.
Description
Citation
Hall, H., Medina, P., Cooper, D. A., Escobedo, S. E., Rounds, J., Brennan, K. J., … Weake, V. M. (2017). Transcriptome profiling of aging Drosophila photoreceptors reveals gene expression trends that correlate with visual senescence. BMC Genomics, 18(1). doi:10.1186/s12864-017-4304-3
Publisher
License
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Journal
Volume
Issue
PubMed ID
ISSN
1471-2164