The concept of lifespan development has been discussed extensively by several theorists for decades. This paper briefly reviews two old theories particularly Freud’s psychosexual and Erikson’s psychosocial stages of development, summarising their basic themes as well as their similarities and how they view successful development. Balte’s theory of lifespan development (particularly on the dynam...

Minocycline is a semi-synthetic tetracycline derivative antibiotic that has received increasing attention for its non-antibiotic properties, mainly anti-inflammatory, tumor-suppressive, and neuroprotective effects. Drosophila is a widely used genetically tractable model organism for studying organismal aging by virtue of its short lifespan and ease of cultivation. In this study, we examined the...

Organismal aging is influenced by a multitude of intrinsic and extrinsic factors, and heterochromatin loss has been proposed to be one of the causes of aging. However, the role of heterochromatin in animal aging has been controversial. Here we show that heterochromatin formation prolongs lifespan and controls ribosomal RNA synthesis in Drosophila. Animals with decreased heterochromatin levels e...

A partial reduction in food intake has been found to increase lifespan in many different organisms. We report here a new dietary restriction regimen in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, based on the standard agar plate lifespan assay, in which adult worms are maintained in the absence of a bacterial food source. These findings represent the first report in any organism of lifespan extension ...

Removing the germline of Caenorhabditis elegans extends lifespan. This lifespan extension requires the nuclear receptor DAF-12 and the cytochrome P450 DAF-9, suggesting that a lipophilic hormone is involved. Here we show that C. elegans contains several hormonal steroids that are also present in humans, including pregnenolone (3beta-hydroxy-pregn-5-en-20-one; PREG) and other pregnane and andros...

As guardian of the genome the tumor suppressor p53 controls a crucial point in protection from cellular damage and response to stressors. Activation of p53 can have beneficial (DNA repair) or detrimental (apoptosis) consequences for individual cells. In either case activation of p53 is thought to safeguard the organism at large from the deleterious effects of various stresses. Recent data sugge...

Maf1 is a conserved effector of the mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR), an aging promoting kinase. However, whether Maf1 is required for lifespan extension caused by mTOR inhibition, such as dietary restriction (DR) or calorie restriction (CR) remains elusive. Here we show that deletion of maf1 in the budding yeast S. cerevisiae but not mafr-1 in C. elegans prevents DR or CR to extend lifes...

The type of food source has previously been shown to be as important as the level of food intake in influencing lifespan. Here we report that different Escherichia coli food sources alter Caenorhabditis elegans lifespan. These effects are modulated by different subsets of sensory neurons, which act with nmur-1, a homolog of mammalian neuromedin U receptors. Wild-type nmur-1, which is expressed ...

Diet and sex are important determinants of lifespan. In humans, high sugar diets, obesity, and type 2 diabetes correlate with decreased lifespan, and females generally live longer than males. The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is a classical model for aging studies, and has also proven useful for characterizing the response to high-glucose diets. However, studies on male animals are lacking. W...

Folates are cofactors for biosynthetic enzymes in all eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells. Animals cannot synthesize folate and must acquire it from their diet or microbiota. Previously, we showed that inhibiting E. coli folate synthesis increases C. elegans lifespan. Here, we show that restriction or supplementation of C. elegans folate does not influence lifespan. Thus, folate is required in E. ...