My scientist finds new anti-aging target genes
Science and Technology Daily, Shanghai, February 27 (Liu Sijiang, reporter Wang Chun) Chinese scientists have revealed the principle of aging from the nervous system and genetic level, and discovered BAZ2B, a new anti-aging target gene, which provides a new theory for retarding brain aging in accordance with. In the early morning of February 27, the relevant research results were published online in the internationally renowned academic paper "Nature" under the title "Two Conservative Epigenetic Regulators Preventing Healthy Aging".
The research was conducted by the Cai Shiqing Research Group of the Shanghai Academy of Brain Sciences and Brain-Like Research Center, the State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience and the Shanghai Luster Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Collaboration.
Aging is the physiological process in which various physiological functions of the organism gradually degrade over time, and finally the physiological process of death. It is also the greatest risk factor for chronic diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, cancer, and diabetes.
At present, scientists have discovered that there are hundreds of genes that can prolong life. However, Cai Shiqing's research team found in previous research that longevity genes may not delay the behavioral degradation of animals during aging, and increasing neurotransmitters can improve the behavioral capacity of older animals.
Based on this, Cai Shiqing's research team and Jiang Lubin's research team combined the two model animals of C. elegans, mice, and human brain gene expression databases to find anti-aging target genes, and finally found BAZ-2 and SET-6. Epigenetic regulatory factors are located at key nodes of the aging regulatory network and are mainly expressed in the nervous system.
The homologous genes of BAZ-2 and SET-6 are BAZ2B and EHMT1, respectively. Researchers have found that in the human brain, the expression of BAZ2B and EHMT1 gradually increases with aging and is positively related to the progression of Alzheimer's disease. In addition, reducing BAZ2B function can improve cognitive function in aged mice.
As a cell's energy factory, decreased mitochondrial function is an important cause of tissue function degradation. The study further found that reducing BAZ-2 / BAZ2B and SET-6 / EHMT1 functions can increase the mitochondrial function of the worm or mouse brain, and thus enable the elderly worm / mouse to maintain higher behavioral capacity. "And the expression of BAZ2B and EHMT1 in the brain of patients with Alzheimer's disease and the expression of key mitochondrial proteins are significantly negatively correlated, suggesting that BAZ2B and EHMT1 can also regulate mitochondrial function in the human brain."
Cai Shiqing also said that the current research is limited to the results from the nematode, mouse, and reference human brain databases. "Considering the large species differences between human and mouse model organisms, there is still a lot of uncertainty as to whether these studies can be applied to humans."