RIKEN scientists link low larval protein to longer fruit fly lives

A team led by biologist Fumiaki Obata at the RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research in Kobe, Japan, identified a protein that preserves a record of larval diet in fruit flies, influencing adult lifespan. The findings appear in a recent study in Nature and address a long-standing question about how early nutrition affects health weeks, months, or years later.

Obata’s team reduced the yeast concentration in the fruit fly diet from eight percent to either one or two percent. Yeast serves as the main source of protein in the standard laboratory mix of yeast and sugar. The researchers applied this restricted diet during the latter half of the larval stage. After emerging as adults from their pupae, the insects were given their usual food again.

The discovery builds on observations dating back to the 1930s, when scientists noted that water fleas and rats fed restricted diets while young went on to live longer. Similar effects have since been documented in fruit flies and mice. The specific mechanism by which a meal eaten in infancy could affect later health had remained unclear until this new research pointed to a protein carrying dietary information into adulthood.