Harvard & Cornell find 89 genes that extend life

[Guest guest]

Just an interesting find. Apparently there are 89 genes that

when " interfered " with in C. elegans, produce lifespan extension.

What is particularly interesting is that many of the genes in

question have human homologs.

Many of the genes, however, are " upstream " and " downstream " from the

relatively well-characterized " insulin/IGF-I " pathway, so it may be

that there is a little bit of redundancy. But, the authors are

convinced that some of the genes they found are operating

independently of the previously characterized genes.

I guess the only caveat here is that worms are a long way from

humans...

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Genes Dev. 2005 Jul 1;19(13):1544-55. Related Articles, Links

A systematic RNAi screen for longevity genes in C. elegans.

Hamilton B, Dong Y, Shindo M, Liu W, Odell I, Ruvkun G, Lee SS.

We report here the first genome-wide functional genomic screen for

longevity genes. We systematically surveyed Caenorhabditis elegans

genes using large-scale RNA interference (RNAi), and found that RNAi

inactivation of 89 genes extend C. elegans lifespan. Components of

the daf-2/insulin-like signaling pathway are recovered, as well as

genes that regulate metabolism, signal transduction, protein

turnover, and gene expression. Many of these candidate longevity

genes are conserved across animal phylogeny. Genetic interaction

analyses with the new longevity genes indicate that some act upstream

of the daf-16/FOXO transcription factor or the sir2.1 protein

deacetylase, and others function independently of daf-16/FOXO and

sir2.1, and might define new pathways to regulate lifespan.

PMID: 15998808 [PubMed - in process]

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T.

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