Chronic Exposure to Perfluorooctane Sulfonate Reduces Lifespan of Caenorhabditis elegans Through Insulin/IGF-1 Signaling

• DOI: 10.1007/s00128-016-1808-5
• Publication Date: 2016-04-19T08:37:39Z
• Authors: Tiantian Xu; Ping Li; Siyu Wu; Dan Li; Jingxuan Wu; Kathleen M. Raley...; Defu He
• Keywords: 0301 basic medicine; Fluorocarbons; Longevity; 03 medical and health sciences; Alkanesulfonic Acids; Mutation; Animals; Insulin; Environmental Pollutants; Insulin-Like Growth Factor I; Caenorhabditis elegans; Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins; Genes, Helminth; Signal Transduction

Perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) is a persistent organic pollutant. Although multiple adverse effects of PFOS have been demonstrated, whether PFOS can accelerate aging and affect animal longevity remains unknown. In Caenorhabditis elegans, we found that a 50 h exposure to 0.2-200 µM PFOS reduced lifespan in a concentration dependent manner. In transgenic nematodes, lifespans are affected by mutations of daf-16, daf-2 or age-1 genes, which are related to the Insulin/IGF-1 Signaling pathway (IIS). PFOS exposure caused an additional reduction in average lifespan in daf-2(e1370) and daf-16b(KO) nematodes. In contrast, daf-16(mu86) nematodes showed no additional reduction with PFOS exposure and age-1(hx546) mutants did not exhibit a reduction in lifespan with PFOS exposure, compared with wildtype nematodes. Overall, our findings demonstrate that PFOS exposure accelerates aging and shortens longevity of animals. The PFOS-induced effect may involve genes of the IIS pathway, particularly daf-16 and age-1.