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Letter

Nature Genetics 37, 894–898 (1 August 2005) | doi:10.1038/ng1608

A stress-sensitive reporter predicts longevity in isogenic populations of Caenorhabditis elegans

Shane L Rea , Deqing Wu , James R Cypser , James W Vaupel & Thomas E Johnson

When both genotype and environment are held constant, 'chance' variation in the lifespan of individuals in a population is still quite large. Using isogenic populations of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, we show that, on the first day of adult life, chance variation in the level of induction of a green fluorescent protein (GFP) reporter coupled to a promoter from the gene hsp-16.2 predicts as much as a fourfold variation in subsequent survival.