Significance: The main objective of this review was to provide an exposition of investigations, conducted in Drosophila melanogaster, on the role of reactive oxygen species and redox state in the aging process. While early transgenic studies did not clearly support the validity of the oxidative stress hypothesis of aging, predicated on the accumulation of structural damage, they spawned a broader search for redox-related effects that might impact the aging process. Recent Advances: Initial evidence implicating the thiol redox state as a possible causative factor in aging has been obtained in Drosophila. Overexpression of genes, such as GCL, G6PD, Prx2, and Prx5, which are involved in the maintenance of thiol redox homeostasis, has strong positive effects on longevity. Further, the depletion of peroxiredoxin activity in the mitochondria through the double knockdown of Prx5 and Prx3 not only results in a redox crisis but also elicits a rapid aging phenotype. Critical Issues: Herein, we summarize the present status of knowledge about the main components of the machinery controlling thiol redox homeostasis and describe how age-related redox fluctuations might impact aging more acutely through disruption of the redox-sensitive signaling mechanisms rather than via the simple accumulation of structural damage. Future Directions: Based on these initial insights into the plausible impact of redox fluctuations on redox signaling, future studies should focus on the pathways that have been explicitly implicated in aging, such as insulin signaling, TOR, and JNK/FOXO, with particular attention to elements that are redox sensitive. Antioxid. Redox Signal. 19, 788-803.
Historical BackgroundLinkage between energy utilization and life span S tudies in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, have historically made important contributions toward the development of basic concepts in many areas of biology, including the aging process, especially in defining the role of oxygen metabolism in the determination of life span. In 1917, Loeb and Northrop showed that the life span of D. melanogaster is inversely associated with the ambient temperature (61), which, in turn, was later demonstrated to be linked to the rate of oxygen consumption within the physiological range, whose upper limit for long-term survival and optimal fecundity is *27°C (67). A major advance in the field of aging that can be largely credited to the Drosophila model was Pearl's (77) interpretation of the effects of temperature on longevity, namely, shorter life spans at elevated temperatures are ascribable to a relatively higher physical activity or the rate of living (ROL). As originally proposed, the length of life of an individual organism is governed by two distinct factors: (i) a genetically determined metabolic potential, that is, the total amount of energy consumed during life, which varies in different genotypes, and (ii) the rate at which this metabolic potential is expended by the individual or the rate of its metabolism. It is a widely recognized phe...