Lifespan prolonging mechanisms and insulin upregulation without fat accumulation in long-lived reproductives of a higher termite

Abstract

Séité, Harrison, et al. investigate the mechanisms underlying long lifespan in queens and kings of the highly social termite Macrotermes natalensis. Using transcriptomics, lipidomics and metabolomics, this study shows that several aging-related processes are reduced in the fat bodies of these reproductives and that an upregulated insulin-like peptide, Ilp9, does not lead to deleterious fat storage in old queens, while simple sugars dominate in their hemolymph.