Gautrey, S.L., Dunning, L.T. orcid.org/0000-0002-4776-9568, Gossmann, T.I. orcid.org/0000-0001-6609-4116 et al. (1 more author) (2026) Dietary restriction is evolutionarily conserved on the phenotypic and mechanistic level. EMBO Reports. ISSN: 1469-221X
Abstract
The anti-ageing response to Dietary Restriction (DR) is thought to be mechanistically ancient, reasoning from its phenotypic conservation. However, DR is implemented differently across species and evidence for conserved mechanisms remains limited. Here, we tested longevity and fecundity in response to DR across eight different Drosophila species, finding that DR is, on balance, phenotypically conserved. Next, we used comparative transcriptomics and found strongly concordant responses to DR. We studied the evolutionary history of the top concordantly differentially expressed orthologous genes and identified that many are “young” genes, suggesting that the genetic basis of DR is not widely conserved. To validate this hypothesis, we tested the longevity effects of the 15 most conserved genes that change in transcription in response to DR. Surprisingly, we found that 12 out of 15 genes tested had a lifespan phenotype, with 9 extending lifespan. Our findings suggest that while large parts of the DR response are taxonomically specific, some core mechanisms appear conserved. The comparative approaches we used here hold promise to identify shared mechanisms relevant to our own species.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Article |
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| Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ applies to the data associated with this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data, but does not extend to the graphical or creative elements of illustrations, charts, or figures. This waiver removes legal barriers to the re-use and mining of research data. According to standard scholarly practice, it is recommended to provide appropriate citation and attribution whenever technically possible. |
| Keywords: | Evolution & Ecology; Metabolism |
| Dates: |
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| Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
| Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > School of Biosciences (Sheffield) |
| Date Deposited: | 29 Jul 2026 10:30 |
| Last Modified: | 29 Jul 2026 10:30 |
| Status: | Published online |
| Publisher: | Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
| Refereed: | Yes |
| Identification Number: | 10.1038/s44319-026-00875-5 |
| Related URLs: | |
| Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:243974 |

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