This will surely give excellent
direction to research in this field.
Longevity research is beginning to get legs simply because there is a
sense that a lot of the problem can be solved a lot easier than ever expected. We have a chance here when cancer research
bogged down in blind alleys for years.
Certainly our understanding of
the damage done by ill considered eating habits is becoming clearer and this is
also encouraging the public to expect a longer life span of some sort.
Certainly, way more folks will be
seeing their hundredth birthday that ever before. The pressing question is whether it is
possible to remove senescent cells on the way so that we are able to conduct
work. I suspect it is possible and even
that it may be easy. The removal of such
cells should also trigger a jump in growth hormones in order to replace those
removed cells and so on.
We know serious longevity exists
in a number of creatures as complex as we are.
It can not be that hard and we are now starting to seriously look for
answers.
Study suggests why some
animals live longer
by Staff Writers
Liverpool UK (SPX) Apr 02, 2012
Scientists at the University
of Liverpool have developed a new method to detect proteins associated with
longevity, which helps further our understanding into why some animals live
longer than others.
The team looked at the genome
of more than 30 mammalian species to identify proteins that evolve in
connection with the longevity of a species. They found that a protein,
important in responding to DNA damage, evolves and mutates in a
non-random way in species that are longer-lived, suggesting that it is changing
for a specific purpose. They found a similar pattern in proteins associated
with metabolism, cholesterol and pathways involved in the recycling of
proteins.
Findings show that if certain
proteins are being selected by evolution to change in long-lived mammals like
humans and elephants, then it is possible that these species have optimised
pathways that repair molecular damage, compared to shorter-lived animals, such
as mice.
The study, led by Dr Joao
Pedro Magalhaes and postgraduate student, Yang Li, is the first to show
evolutionary patterns in biological repair systems in long-lived animals and
could, in the future, be used to help develop anti-ageing interventions by
identifying proteins in long-lived species that better respond to, for example,
DNA damage.
Proteins associated with the
degradation of damaged proteins, a process that has been connected to ageing,
were also linked with the evolution of longevity in mammals.
Dr Magalhaes, from the
University's Institute of Integrative Biology, said: "The genetic basis
for longevity differences between species remains a major puzzle of biology. A
mouse lives less than five years and yet humans can live to over 100 for
example. If we can identify the proteins that allow some species to live longer
than others we could use this knowledge to improve human health and slow the
ageing process.
"We developed a method
to detect proteins whose molecular evolution correlates with longevity of a
species. The proteins we detected changed in a particular pattern, suggesting
that evolution of these proteins was not by accident, but rather by design to
cope with the biological processes impacted by ageing, such as DNA damage. The
results suggest that long-lived animals were able to optimise bodily repair
which will help them fend off the ageing process."
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