Everyone ages the same way
The mechanisms of regulation of aging in yeast, roundworms, fruit flies, fruit flies and humans have much more in common than previously thought.
Few expected that the similarity of aging processes would be found in such a wide range of species. But, as it turns out, not only very similar proteins work "for aging" in different groups of animals, but also the principles of their interaction are very similar.
Scientists led by Robert Hughes from the Buck Institute for Age Research in California (Novato, California, USA) have built a network of interactions of proteins regulating aging and have shown that human proteins responsible for aging are important centers in molecular interactions regulating the most important functions of the cell. The activity of these proteins varies throughout life, and the aging processes in humans and in simple organisms are very similar.
The interaction network of proteins responsible for life expectancy was built on the basis of data obtained by Prolexys Pharmaceuticals in Salt Lake City, USA. This network consists of 175 human proteins that have known analogues in yeast, nematodes and drosophila and affect their lifespan, and 2163 additional human proteins that interact with proteins that determine the aging processes. A total of 3,271 interactions between 2,338 different proteins are included in the network.
Hughes tried to compare the interactions of proteins from this network with human social interactions. One of the interesting results: an ordinary protein has an average of 14 bonds, and proteins that determine life expectancy have 19 bonds. "In an interacting network, they form "hubs" (communication nodes) and points of interaction between groups of proteins," Hughes believes. "This means that the duration of life is determined by complex interactions between cellular systems, and this complexity is observed at the level of protein interaction." It is noteworthy that the "shutdown" of the aging genes studied in this study leads to an increase in the lifespan of simple organisms. Hughes believes that perhaps the removal of such hub genes with multiple connections can increase life expectancy by preventing the spread of functional disorders through the cell.
The second important conclusion from the study surfaced when scientists compared the studied network of interaction of proteins of life expectancy in old and young volunteers. Statistical analysis clearly showed that there are many proteins in the interaction network that encode genes whose expression level changes during human aging. This amazing result is another proof of the similarity between the mechanisms of aging of humans and invertebrates.
"This work demonstrates the importance of combining protein interaction screening with genetic and functional assessment when studying complex biological processes such as aging," says Sudhir Sahashrabudh, an employee at Prolexys Pharmaceuticals. According to him, many of the proteins, the importance of which for the regulation of life expectancy was not previously guessed, are now open for study by the scientific community. The protein interaction database obtained by Prolexys is the largest in the world, it contains 120,000 protein interactions.
A brief press release on the results of the work is published on the Prolexys Pharmaceuticals website.
Portal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru based on the materials of "Izvestiya Nauki"
19.03.2009