An Optimized Competitive-Aging Method Reveals Gene-Drug Interactions Underlying the Chronological Lifespan of Saccharomyces cerevisiae

The chronological lifespan of budding yeast is a model of aging and age-related diseases. This paradigm has recently allowed genome-wide screening of genetic factors underlying post-mitotic viability in a simple unicellular system, which underscores its potential to provide a comprehensive view of the aging process. However, results from different large-scale studies show little overlap and typically lack quantitative resolution to derive interactions among different aging factors. We previously introduced a sensitive, parallelizable approach to measure the chronological-lifespan effects of gene deletions based on the competitive aging of fluorescence-labeled strains. Here, we present a thorough description of the method, including an improved multiple-regression model to estimate the association between death rates and fluorescent signals, which accounts for possible differences in growth rate and experimental batch effects. We illustrate the experimental procedure—from data acquisition to calculation of relative survivorship—for ten deletion strains with known lifespan phenotypes, which is achieved with high technical replicability. We apply our method to screen for gene-drug interactions in an array of yeast deletion strains, which reveals a functional link between protein glycosylation and lifespan extension by metformin. Competitive-aging screening coupled to multiple-regression modeling provides a powerful, straight-forward way to identify aging factors in yeast and their interactions with pharmacological interventions.