Greater Biological Repair and Maintenance in Long-Lived Ant Queens

Eusocial insects are distinguished by queens that share the same genes as the workers but that, in many species, have a far longer life span. The expression of genes associated with aging is very different in queens, something that has been observed in both ants and bees. Given this, these species can serve as a laboratory in which to gather evidence for and against a variety of hypotheses about aging, its causes, and the degree to which specific causes are important. This paper is one example among many: Since senescence is a detrimental process with important societal and economic impacts, substantial effort has been invested into understanding its causes and many theories have been proposed to explain its origins. One of these theories proposes that senescence is caused by macromolecular damage that accumulates with age due to incomplete somatic maintenance. Lifespan is thus expected to be modulated by investment into physiological processes of damage prevention and repair. So far, investigations of somatic maintenance have mostly focused on systems of damage prevention such as anti-oxidants, and have for the most part refuted the hypothesis that longevity is achieved through damage prevention. A possible explanation for this patterns is that there is a limited potential to freely modulate the amount of reactive oxygen species because they are important signalling molecules. Such constraints are unlikely to apply to systems of macro-molecular repair, which may eff...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs