GENETIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL DETERMINANTS OF AGING AND LONGEVITY: THE LESSON OF THE LIFE-EXTENDING MUTATIONS
A.V. Khalyavkin1, A.I. Yashin2
1Institute of Biochemical Physics of RAS, Moscow, Russia; 2Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany
Most studies of aging are conducted in humans and domestic
or laboratory animals, i.e. in conditions where artificial
environment protection is applied. This yields changes in
physiology and behavior, which set up organism's state
unobserved in wild life. This state may be less adequate to
the evolutionary adjusted genetic construction of an
organism, which generates a hypothesis that in natural
niches the aging rate can be lower and stress resistance
can be higher than in captivity despite the fact that life
expectancy in habitat is essentially lower than that in
laboratory conditions due to high external mortality. Direct
test of this hypothesis is difficult because of problems
related to reconstruction of natural environment conditions
in the laboratory. Substantial life-extending effect of some
mutated genes can serve as indirect test of the hypothesis.
Pertinent life-extending gene modifications were picked up
from available publications and Internet databases and
corresponded to the budding yeast S. cerevisiae (23
genes), nematode C. elegans (57 genes), fruit fly
D. melanogaster (12 genes) and domestic mice
M. musculus (7 genes). We show that in some cases
genetic mutations can distort reaction of an organism on
environmental cues and change control parameters of its
life cycle. As a result such mutants in laboratory may
partly demonstrate life traits similar to those observed in
natural environment, e.g. associated with high stress
resistance and low rate of aging. These features combined
with low external mortality in laboratory conditions may
lead to significant extension in the life span of mutants.
Key words:
Life-extending mutations, Aging plasticity, Environmental influences
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