- Lee, Dongyeop;
- An, Seon Woo A;
- Jung, Yoonji;
- Yamaoka, Yasuyo;
- Ryu, Youngjae;
- Goh, Grace Ying Shyen;
- Beigi, Arshia;
- Yang, Jae-Seong;
- Jung, Gyoo Yeol;
- K., Dengke;
- Ha, Chang Man;
- Taubert, Stefan;
- Lee, Youngsook;
- Lee, Seung-Jae V
- Editor(s): Campisi, Judith
Low temperatures delay aging and promote longevity in many organisms. However, the metabolic and homeostatic aspects of low-temperature-induced longevity remain poorly understood. Here, we show that lipid homeostasis regulated by Caenorhabditis elegans Mediator 15 (MDT-15 or MED15), a transcriptional coregulator, is essential for low-temperature-induced longevity and proteostasis. We find that inhibition of mdt-15 prevents animals from living long at low temperatures. We show that MDT-15 up-regulates fat-7, a fatty acid desaturase that converts saturated fatty acids (SFAs) to unsaturated fatty acids (UFAs), at low temperatures. We then demonstrate that maintaining a high UFA/SFA ratio is essential for proteostasis at low temperatures. We show that dietary supplementation with a monounsaturated fatty acid, oleic acid (OA), substantially mitigates the short life span and proteotoxicity in mdt-15(-) animals at low temperatures. Thus, lipidostasis regulated by MDT-15 appears to be a limiting factor for proteostasis and longevity at low temperatures. Our findings highlight the crucial roles of lipid regulation in maintaining normal organismal physiology under different environmental conditions.