Research Paper Volume 8, Issue 4 pp 777—795

Aging causes decreased resistance to multiple stresses and a failure to activate specific stress response pathways

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Figure 1. Stress resistance declines with age. Synchronized populations of wild-type worms were aged to 1, 3, 5, 8 and 12 days of adulthood on plates containing 25 μM FUdR. All ages were assayed together at the same time. Multiple types of stress resistance were measured including (A) osmotic stress, (B) heat stress, (C) anoxia, (D-F) oxidative stress and (G,H) exposure to pathogenic bacteria. For all types of stress measured, peak resistance to stress occurred during early adulthood and declined with age. Error bars indicate SEM. *p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p<0.001.