Molecular Genetic Mechanisms in Development and Aging

For a considerable number of years, I have been concerned with studying, together with my students and colleagues, the underlying biochemical events which precede, accompany, and also follow the maturation and decline of the locomotor ability of flight in the male house fly, Musca domestica, L., with age. Because the flight muscle in the male house fly shows marked degenerative changes both in structure and function in relation to declining flight ability, I have been particularly interested in those biochemical components of flight muscle of flying insects which are involved in the energizing of contraction of the highly active flight muscle. In this regard, we have found a persistent, reproducible pattern of age-related sequential biochemical events, as shown in Table I and in Figures 1 and 2. These changes occur generation after generation according to a predictable and, therefore, assumedly genetically programmed series of step-wise biochemical alterations from day to day after adult emergence.