Authors:

Sophia Pruitt

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About Paper:

Age-related eye diseases that can cause blindness are becoming increasingly common with the shifting population, making it extremely important to study the aging eye. Drosophila melanogaster photoreceptors are known to degenerate with age, similar to human eyes. The circadian rhythm becomes dysregulated during age in both Drosophila and humans, which can contribute to developing eye disease. In order to identify the role of the circadian clock in photoreceptor health during aging, we aged several lines of Drosophila with core clock gene mutations to various time points and compared to wild-type Drosophila. We determined photoreceptor health by taking images of the eyes using optic neutralization. The images were scored for rhabdomere degeneration and compared to other genotypes and time points. We found that Drosophila with core clock mutations have increased premature rhabdomere degeneration when compared to wild-type specimens. These data suggest that circadian rhythm functionality is an important component of photoreceptor health during aging.

Source:

Purdue University / 2023

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Co-authors:

Sophia Pruitt