Divergent mechanisms controlling hypoxic sensitivity and lifespan by the DAF-2/Insulin/IGF-receptor pathway

To identify genes that selectively regulate hypoxic sensitivity, we compared the whole-organismal transcriptomes of three daf-2 reduction-of-function alleles, all of which are hypoxia resistant, thermotolerant, and long lived but differ in their rank of severities for these phenotypes. The transcript levels of 172 genes were increased in the most hypoxia resistant daf-2 allele, e1370, relative to the other alleles whereas transcripts from only 10 genes were decreased in abundance. Synchronously staged L4 animals were grown at 20C, washed off plates with M9 buffer and total RNA was immediately isolated. This total RNA was the template for the cDNA microarrays.