autophagy tagged posts

Gene Links Exercise Endurance, Cold Tolerance, and Cellular Maintenance in Flies

flies moving sled in snow with person
Jacob Dwyer, Michigan Medicine

The gene, dubbed Iditarod, seems responsible for exercise’s ability to clean up damaged cells. As the days get shorter and chillier in the northern hemisphere, those who choose to work out in the mornings might find it harder to get up and running. A new study in PNAS identifies a protein that, when missing, makes exercising in the cold that much harder – that is, at least in fruit flies.

A team from University of Michigan Medical School and Wayne State University School of Medicine discovered the protein in flies, which they named Iditarod after the famous long distance dog sled across Alaska, while studying metabolism and the effect of stress on the body.

They were particularly interested in a physiological process called autophagy wherein damaged...

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Scientists uncover a Novel Cellular Mechanism that Regulates Aging and Fertility

“We have always been intrigued by the dichotomy between two diametrically opposed, fundamental phenomena in biology: soma mortality and germline immortality. The prospect of uncovering the molecular underpinnings of this sharply idiosyncratic character of cell types, within a single organism, provided ample motivation for us to embark on a research journey, towards tackling such questions. We decided to focus on nuclear morphology in somatic cells, which deteriorates during ageing. By contrast, the overall architecture of the nucleus is preserved in the germline. Our hypothesis was that a homeostatic mechanism effectively maintains the structure of germ cell nuclei, whereas it fails during ageing, in the soma...
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Do Women Age differently from Men?

Rapamycin prolongs lifespan only in female fruit flies.
© K. Link

The effect of medicines on women and men can differ significantly. This also applies to the currently most promising anti-aging drug rapamycin, as researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Cologne and University College London have now shown. They report in Nature Aging that the drug only prolongs the lifespan of female fruit flies, but not that of males.

In addition, rapamycin only slowed the development of age-related pathological changes in the gut in female flies. The researchers conclude that the biological sex is a crucial factor in the effectiveness of anti-aging drugs.

The life expectancy of women is significantly higher than that of men...

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Scientists Reveal New Function of Enzyme ADAR1 Linking it to Age-Related Diseases via a Role Independent of RNA-editing during Aging

extended data figure 9
ADAR1 regulates SIRT1 expression.

Aging and age-related disorders pose a complex challenge to the biomedical research community. To better understand how senescence is regulated is of high significance to promote healthy aging and treat age-associated disorders. In a research paper published today in Nature Cell Biology, Rugang Zhang, Ph.D., deputy director of the Ellen and Ronald Caplan Cancer Center, Christopher M. Davis Endowed Professor, and program leader of the Immunology, Microenvironment & Metastasis Program, at The Wistar Institute, and his team revealed a novel ADAR1-SIRT1-p16INK4a axis in regulating cellular senescence and its potential implications in tissue aging.

“Understanding the basic mechanism underlying tissue aging is challenging and cellular senescence offers an...

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