Selection of Drosophila altered behaviour and aging strains for Microgravity Research.

Some years ago Prof. Marco and his team discovered that Drosophila show noticeably different behaviour as well as accelerated aging in Space (1-4). It was also proven that by simulating these conditions on Earth, it was possible to replicate these phenomena (2,5,6). In order to demonstrate how closely connected the enhanced motility and the accelerated aging are, five Drosophila strains have been selected, each behaving differentially under altered gravity conditions. Three of these strains have been selected some years ago and reselected over the last six months according to their gravitropic response in a vertically-oriented ten-exit maze for 25 generations. The behaviour of flies at 1g resembles an exaggerated escape response to gravity, a neutral behaviour to gravity and a negative (attractive) behaviour to gravity, respectively. The other two strains have been selected over several decades according to the longevity of their parents to experimentally produce a short and a long-life strain. The five selected strains are scored against a gravitropic index, median survival and median motility in 1g conditions to evaluate their usability as microgravity research tools. Preliminary experiments have been performed at ESTEC/DESC altered gravity facilities (hypergravity and simulated microgravity). The establishment of these strains will provide science with an exciting new tool in Space Biology and their future utilization on space missions or long term stays in the International Space Station is promising.