Abstract
Life span is increasing in developed countries as Japan, and an aging society is becoming a problem. In fact, healthy lifespan is not extended, and it is desired to extend it by functional food. Cacao (Theobroma cacao) contains various active components and is considered a preventative agent against metabolic disease. In addition, it has long been thought that regular cacao intake extends a healthy lifespan. However, there is no direct evidence for this belief. The purpose of this study is to identify the cacao component that elongate the lifespan of D. melanogaster as a model organism and to elucidate its functional mechanism. The activation of sirtuins, a family of NAD+-dependent deacetylases, has been reported to extend the lifespans of various organisms. Heat shock factor 1 is known to be deacetylated by reaction with sirtuins, thereby inducing gene expression of various heat shock proteins by heat stress and effectively extending the lifespan of organisms. Therefore, we evaluated whether components in cacao activate sirtuins and extend the lifespan of D. melanogaster. In the process, we discovered the fatty acid tryptamide as a lifespan-elongating component of cacao. Therefore, we investigated whether the fatty acid tryptamide from cacao upregulates the genes of heat shock proteins. As a result, it was confirmed that the gene expression of multiple heat shock proteins was significantly increased. This suggests that fatty acid tryptamide may activate sirtuins, increase gene expression of heat shock proteins, and elongate the lifespan of D. melanogaster.