Fig. 3: Autophagy in gut enterocytes regulates gut pathologies and lifespan.
a, Adult-onset knockdown of Atg5 in adult ECs (5966GS > Atg5[RNAi]) did not affect the number of LysoTracker-stained puncta in the gut of females, but decreased it in the gut of males to the level observed in females, at 20 days of age (scale bar = 20 µm; n = 7 intestines per condition; n = 2–3 pictures per intestine, data points represent the average value per intestine; linear mixed model, interaction P < 0.01; post-hoc test). b, Females had higher gut leakiness (number of Smurfs) than males, and adult-onset knockdown of Atg5 in adult ECs in males significantly increased it, to the level observed in females, at 60 days of age (bar charts show n = 10 biological replicates of 8–20 flies per replicate, two-way ANOVA, interaction P < 0.01; post-hoc test). c, Adult-onset knockdown of Atg5 in adult ECs did not affect the level of dysplasia in the gut of females, but increased it in the gut of males to the level observed in females, at 50 days of age (scale bar = 15 µm; n = 7 intestines, two-way ANOVA, interaction P > 0.05; post-hoc test). d, Adult-onset knockdown of Atg5 in adult ECs did not change the number of pH3+ cells in either females or males, at 20 days of age (n = 16 intestines, two-way ANOVA, interaction P > 0.05; post-hoc test). e, Adult-onset knockdown of Atg5 in adult ECs shortened lifespan of males, but not females (log-rank test, females P = 0.80, males P = 4.5 × 10−3, n = 199 flies per condition). See also Supplementary Table 4. Data are presented as mean values ± s.e.m.
