Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome (HGPS) is a premature-aging syndrome caused by a dominant mutation in the gene encoding lamin A, which leads to an aberrantly spliced and processed protein termed progerin. Previous studies have shown that progerin induces early senescence associated with increased DNA-damage signaling and that telomerase extends HGPS cellular lifespan. We demonstrate that t...

T he autosomal dominant form of Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy (EDMD2; OMIM #181350) was the first disorder to be associated with mutations in the LMNA gene, encoding the nuclear envelope proteins lamin A and C. Following this, other mutations were reported in limb girdle muscular dystrophy with atrioventricular conduction defects (LGMD1B; OMIM #159001) and a conduction system disease with d...

Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome (HGPS) is an extremely rare premature and accelerated aging disease caused by a de novo point mutation in LMNA encoding A-type lamins. Progerin, a truncated and toxic form of prelamin A, accumulates in HGPS cells nuclei and is a hallmark of the disease. We show that progerin is sequestered, together with other proteins (lamins B1/B2, emerin), into abnormally...

Cellular accumulation of DNA damage has been widely implicated in cellular senescence, aging, and premature aging. In Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome (HGPS) and restrictive dermopathy (RD), premature aging is linked to accumulation of DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs), which results in genome instability. However, how DSBs accumulate in cells despite the presence of intact DNA repair protein...

The mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway is an highly conserved signal transduction axis involved in many cellular processes, such as cell growth, survival, transcription, translation, apoptosis, metabolism, motility and autophagy. Recently, this signalling pathway has come to the attention of the scientific community owing to the unexpected finding that inhibition of mTOR by rapamycin,...

A-type lamins are components of the peripheral nuclear lamina but also localize in the nuclear interior in a complex with lamina-associated polypeptide (LAP) 2α. Loss of LAP2α and nucleoplasmic lamins in wild-type cells increases cell proliferation, but in cells expressing progerin (a mutant lamin A that causes Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome), low LAP2α levels result in proliferation defe...

The zinc metalloprotease ZMPSTE24 plays a critical role in nuclear lamin biology by cleaving the prenylated and carboxylmethylated 15-amino acid tail from the C-terminus of prelamin A to yield mature lamin A. A defect in this proteolytic event, caused by a mutation in the lamin A gene (LMNA) that eliminates the ZMPSTE24 cleavage site, underlies the premature aging disease Hutchinson-Gilford Pro...