Indy (gene)

Indy, short for I'm not dead yet, is a gene of the model organism, the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. Mutant versions of this gene have doubled the average life span of fruit flies in at least one set of experiments, but this result has been subject to controversy.[1] Its name originates from a well-known comic line in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.[2]

In a Yale University School of Medicine study by lead author and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Gerald Shulman, the George R. Cowgill Professor of Physiological Chemistry, Medicine, and Cellular and Molecular Biology, reduced expression of this gene in Drosophila melanogaster flies and C. elegans worms modeled the effects on obesity and diabetes of caloric reduction in primates such as humans.[3]

References

  1. ↑ Helfanda SL, Nerettia N, Wanga P, Roginac B (2009). "Reply to Partridge et al.: Longevity of Drosophila Indy mutant is influenced by caloric intake and genetic background". Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 106 (21): E54. doi:10.1073/pnas.0902947106.
  2. ↑ Clever Drosophila gene names
  3. ↑ http://opac.yale.edu/news/article.aspx?id=8772

See also

External links


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