The secret of longevity of moths
Bat genes have shown how long not to age
An increase in life expectancy in the United States and the European Union – by an average of two years per decade at the current average of 78 years – leads to an increase in the number of elderly people. But for a person, the threshold beyond which aging-related diseases begin is unchanged. Thus, 77% of oncological diseases occur after the fiftieth anniversary.
Bats are a suitable object for aging research. Of the 19 species of mammals that outperform humans in terms of life expectancy, correlated with body weight, eighteen are them. Moths are distinguished by their special longevity, in particular, 13 of their species easily survive the twenty-year milestone. The record holder, who has reached the age of 41, is considered to be Brandt's tiny moth bat – Myotis brandtii.
The relationship between longevity and changes in special areas at the ends of chromosomes – telomeres - has not been studied in bats. For many mammals and humans, it has been shown that these areas shorten with each cell division, that is, with age. Having become critically short, they become a source of a signal about DNA damage, after which the mechanism of cellular aging is activated. Telomeres do not shrink with age in cancer and stem cells, where the active work of the enzyme telomerase, which completes these tips of chromosomes, is noted.
To find out how telomeres behave in record-breaking centenarians, researchers collected DNA material in four species of wild bats. 493 individuals participated in the experiment, and the chronological age (from 6 to 25 years) was determined for each.
Comparing the relative length of telomeres in different species with age, scientists found that in species of the genus noctuidae, telomeres did not shorten with age, whereas in the other two species, as well as in many mammals and humans, they decreased. The culprit of maintaining the length of telomeres could not be telomerase – scientists found this by analyzing all the RNA contained in blood cells, or transcriptomes.
In an evolutionary model that describes the distribution of 225 genes somehow related to telomeres between different species of bats over the past 98 million years, scientists have shown that the genus of moths separated from others thanks to the SETX and ATM genes, which are associated with the restoration of damaged DNA sites. This is the secret of longevity of this kind.
Maintaining the length of telomeres in this way, and therefore not aging cells in the body, is a promising technique that can be useful to people. The work of telomerase provides the same effect, but in 90% of cases it is accompanied by oncological diseases, and in this case the youth of the body in old age will be accompanied by health.
The work was published in the journal Science Advances (Growing old, yet staying young: The role of telomeres in bats’ exceptional longevity).
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