Aging Gracefully Requires Taking Out The Trash

Aging Gracefully Requires Taking Out The Trash - ScienceDaily
2007.12.14
"Suppressing a cellular cleanup-mechanism known as autophagy can accelerate the accumulation of protein aggregates that leads to neural degeneration...Boosting autophagy in the nervous system of fruit flies prevented the age-dependent accumulation of cellular damage in neurons and promoted longevity..."suggests there is an age-dependent suppression of autophagy that may be a contributing factor for human neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer's disease"...The age-related accumulation of proteins and lipids damaged by chemically aggressive forms of oxygen is considered by most in the geriatrics field to be a normal part of the aging process. As a result in most age-associated diseases, such as Alzheimer's, damaged proteins accumulate in excessive amounts, which leads to progressive cell death in the brain...When the researchers kept the neuronal levels of Atg8a high, the genetically engineered flies were spared the ravages of time. Promoting the pathway not only prevented the accumulation of protein aggregates but also significantly extended the average lifespan. "Our experiments show for the first time genetically that autophagy can sequester and eliminate misfolded and damaged proteins, which accumulate in neurons as normal part of the aging process," says Simonsen...Insulin signaling and caloric restriction are two major determinants of longevity and they also impact the activity level of autophagy. Therefore, regulating autophagy, the pathway that directly does the cleanup work, may be the key factor in controlling the aging process..."By maintaining the expression of a rate-limiting autophagy gene in the aging nervous system there is a dramatic extension of lifespan and resistance to age-associated oxidative stress," says Finley."

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