Polymorphisms in the human homologue of the drosophila Indy (I'm not dead yet) gene

Insertion of a P element in one copy of the Drosophila Indy gene results in a significant increase in Drosophila lifespan. In order to examine whether mutations or polymorphisms in the human Indy gene promoted human longevity, the Indy gene was sequenced in 13 subjects of age 90-99, 12 subjects between age 38-49 and 18 subjectsage 23. Three coding region polymorphisms resulting in an amino acid change, F62L, V80L and I550V, two silent coding region polymorphisms, A99A and I551I, and three intron polymorphisms, IVS2+10 C deletion, IVS9+40T/A and IVS10+38C/T were identified. The I550V polymorphism occurred in whites, Hispanics, Asians and African-Americans at allele frequencies of 0.3514, 0.5104, 0.4274 and 0.5375, respectively. The I550V polymorphism was genotyped in 2366 subjects and examined for its association with age and weight.