Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Volume 284, Issue 1846, Pages -Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2016.2052
Keywords
free amino acids; lifespan; nutrition; protein; argentine ants
Categories
Funding
- ANR [11 JSV7 009 01]
- Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship [660976]
- Agence Nationale de la Recherche [JSV7-0009-01]
- Marie Curie Actions (MSCA) [660976] Funding Source: Marie Curie Actions (MSCA)
Ask authors/readers for more resources
High-protein diets shorten lifespan in many organisms. Is it because protein digestion is energetically costly or because the final products (the amino acids) are harmful? To answer this question while circumventing the lifehistory trade-off between reproduction and longevity, we fed sterile ant workers on diets based on whole proteins or free amino acids. We found that (i) free amino acids shortened lifespan even more than proteins; (ii) the higher the amino acid-to-carbohydrate ratio, the shorter ants lived and the lower their lipid reserves; (iii) for the same amino acid-to-carbohydrate ratio, ants eating free amino acids had more lipid reserves than those eating whole proteins; and (iv) on whole protein diets, ants seem to regulate food intake by prioritizing sugar, while on free amino acid diets, they seem to prioritize amino acids. To test the effect of the amino acid profile, we tested diets containing proportions of each amino acid thatmatched the ant's exome; surprisingly, longevitywas unaffected by this change. We further tested diets with all amino acids under-represented except one, finding that methionine, serine, threonine and phenylalanine are especially harmful. All together, our results show certain amino acids are key elements behind the high-protein diet reduction in lifespan.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available