Ensheathing glia promote healthy brain aging

Drosophila ensheathing glia decline in relative numbers during normal aging. Using p35, we inhibit apoptosis specifically in ensheathing glia, and show that this is sufficient to rescue the decline in ensheathing glia, improve neuromotor performance of aged flies, and increase lifespan. Remaining ensheathing glia from aged brains exhibit transcriptomes exhibiting signs of lipid metabolism and apoptosis dysregulation. Expanding ensheathing glia with p35 also prevented the accumulation of amyloid plaques and delayed premature death in a fly model of Alzheimer's disease. Overall design: Transcriptomes of Drosophila brains or sorted ensheathing glia or astrocytes from Drosophila brains were sequenced and analyzed. Samples come from whole brains (3 replicates each at ages d5 and d70 for each driver line of 10E12, 56F03, and 86E01 - 18 samples), sorted ensheathing glia (3 replicates each at ages d5 and d70 for each driver line of 10E12 and 56F03 - 12 samples), and sorted astrocytes (3 replicates each at ages d5 and d70 from driver line 86E01 - 6 samples). Total: 36 samples.