Drosophila melanogaster p53 has developmental stage-specific and sex-specific effects on adult life span indicative of sexual antagonistic pleiotropy.

Truncated and mutant forms of p53 affect life span in Drosophila, nematodes and mice, however the role of wildtype p53 in aging remains unclear. Here conditional over-expression of both wild-type and mutant p53 transgenes indicated that, in adult flies, p53 limits life span in females but favors life span in males. In contrast, during larval development, moderate over-expression of p53 produced both male and female adults with increased life span. Mutations of the endogenous p53 gene also had sex-specific effects on life span under control and stress conditions: null mutation of p53 increased life span in females, and had smaller, more variable effects in males. These developmental stage-specific and sex-specific effects of p53 on adult life span are consistent with a sexual antagonistic pleiotropy model.