The nervous system plays an important but poorly understood role in modulating longevity. GABA, a prominent inhibitory neurotransmitter, is best known to regulate nervous system function and behaviour in diverse organisms. Whether GABA signalling affects aging, however, has not been explored. Here we examined mutants lacking each of the major neurotransmitters in C. elegans, and find that defic...

Our understanding of lifespan has benefited enormously from the study of a simple model, the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Although a unicellular organism, yeasts undergo many of the processes directly related with aging that to some extent are conserved in mammalian cells. Nutrient-limiting conditions have been involved in lifespan extension, especially in the case of caloric restriction, wh...

RNA interference (RNAi) provides an important tool for gene function discovery. It has been widely exploited in Caenorhabditis elegans ageing research because it does not appear to have any non-specific effects on ageing-related traits in that model organism. We show here that ubiquitous, adult-onset activation of the RNAi machinery, achieved by expressing a double stranded RNA targeting GFP or...

Aging is thought to be caused by the accumulation of damage, primarily from oxidative modifications of cellular components by reactive oxygen species (ROS). Here we used yeast methionine sulfoxide reductases MsrA and MsrB to address this hypothesis. In the presence of oxygen, these antioxidants could increase yeast lifespan and did so independent of the lifespan extension offered by caloric res...

Much excitement has arisen from the observation that decrements in insulin-like signaling can dramatically extend lifespan in the nematode, Caenorhabditis elegans, and fruitfly, Drosophila melanogaster. In addition, there are tantalizing hints that the IGF-I pathway in mice may have similar effects. In addition to dramatic effects on lifespan, invertebrate insulin-like signaling also promotes c...

Autophagy is a highly conserved mechanism for cellular repair that becomes progressively down-regulated during normal ageing. Hence, manipulations that activate autophagy could increase lifespan. Previous reports show that manipulations to the autophagy pathway can result in longevity extension in yeast, flies, worms and mammals. Under standard nutrition, autophagy is inhibited by the nutrient ...

Independent reproducibility is essential to the generation of scientific knowledge. Optimizing experimental protocols to ensure reproducibility is an important aspect of scientific work. Genetic or pharmacological lifespan extensions are generally small compared to the inherent variability in mean lifespan even in isogenic populations housed under identical conditions. This variability makes re...

The genetics of aging is typically concerned with lifespan determination that is associated with alterations in expression levels or mutations of particular genes. Previous reports in C. elegans have shown that the bmk-1 gene has important functions in chromosome segregation, and this has been confirmed with its mammalian homolog, KIF11. However, this gene has never been implicated in aging or ...

We previously reported that global deletion of insulin receptor substrate protein 1 (Irs1) extends lifespan and increases resistance to several age-related pathologies in female mice. However, no effect on lifespan was observed in male Irs1 null mice. We suggested at the time that the lack of any effect in males might have been due to a sample size issue. While such lifespan studies are essenti...

Oxygen provides the substrate for most ATP production, but also serves as a source of reactive oxygen species (ROS), which can induce cumulative macromolecular oxidative damage and cause aging. Pure oxygen atmospheres (100 kPa) are known to strongly reduce invertebrate lifespan and induce aging-related physiological changes. However, the nature of the relationship between atmospheric oxygen, ox...