Genome maintenance is considered a prime longevity assurance mechanism as apparent from many progeroid human syndromes that are caused by genome maintenance defects. The ERCC1 protein is involved in three genome maintenance systems: nucleotide excision repair, interstrand cross-link repair, and homologous recombination. Here we describe in-life and post-mortem observations for a hypomorphic Erc...

BACKGROUND Progerin is a mutant form of lamin A responsible for Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome (HGPS), a premature aging disorder characterized by excessive atherosclerosis and vascular calcification that leads to premature death, predominantly of myocardial infarction or stroke. The goal of this study was to investigate mechanisms that cause excessive vascular calcification in HGPS. ME...

Mandibular hypoplasia, deafness, progeroid features and lipodystrophy (MDPL) syndrome is an autosomal dominant disorder caused by heterozygous mutations in the polymerase, delta 1, catalytic subunit (POLD1) gene. Here, we report the clinical description of a 10-year-old boy who first presented with short stature and hypogonadism. We screened this patient for mutations by focused exome sequencin...

Loss-of-function mutations in the WRN helicase gene cause Werner syndrome- a progeroid syndrome with an elevated risk of cancer and other age-associated diseases. Large numbers of single nucleotide polymorphisms have been identified in WRN. We report here the organismal, cellular, and molecular phenotypes of variant rs3087425 (c. 2500C > T) that results in an arginine to cysteine substitution a...

With ageing, there is a loss of adult stem cell function. However, there is no direct evidence that this has a causal role in ageing-related decline. We tested this using muscle-derived stem/progenitor cells (MDSPCs) in a murine progeria model. Here we show that MDSPCs from old and progeroid mice are defective in proliferation and multilineage differentiation. Intraperitoneal administration of ...

Glycosylation is a form of post-translational modification of proteins and occurs in every living cell. The carbohydrate chains attached to the proteins serve various functions. There are two main types of protein glycosylation: N-glycosylation and O-glycosylation. In this paper, we describe the O-glycosylation process and currently known congenital disorders of glycosylation associated with de...

Mosaic Variegated Aneuploidy (MVA) syndrome is a rare autosomal recessive disorder characterized by inaccurate chromosome segregation and high rates of near-diploid aneuploidy. Children with MVA syndrome die at an early age, are cancer prone, and have progeroid features like facial dysmorphisms, short stature, and cataracts. The majority of MVA cases are linked to mutations in BUBR1, a mitotic ...

Aging is the main risk factor for most chronic diseases, disabilities, and declining health. It has long been proposed that senescent cells—damaged cells that have lost the ability to divide –drive the deterioration that underlies aging and agerelated diseases. However, definitive evidence for this relationship has been lacking. The use of a progeroid mouse model (which expresses low amounts of...

Progeroid laminopathies are characterized by the abnormal processing of lamin A, the appearance of misshapen nuclei, and the accumulation and persistence of DNA damage. In the present article, I consider the contribution of defective DNA damage pathways to the pathology of progeroid laminopathies. Defects in DNA repair pathways appear to be caused by a combination of factors. These include abno...