The Effects of Cloudberry Fruit Extract on Drosophila melanogaster Lifespan and Stress Resistance

Abstract

We previously demonstrated that carotenoids increase the lifespan of model organisms Drosophila melanogaster and Caenorhabditis elegans. This work studies the effect of the extract of cloudberry fruits (which is characterized by a relatively high content of carotenoids and widely used for food in the north) on lifespan parameters and resistance to various types of stress in the Drosophila melanogaster flies. It is demonstrated that cloudberry extract increased median lifespan and the age of 90% mortality in females up to 11–19%, and it decreased the population aging rate in them by 13%. At the same time, the effect of the cloudberry fruit extract on the lifespan of males was weakly pronounced (and was negative in some cases). The extract did not affect the resistance of Drosophila males and females to starvation and decreased the resistance of males to oxidative stress.