The Many Possible Influences of the Nucleolus in Aging

The open access review paper I'll point out today covers numerous areas of cellular biochemistry relevant to aging wherein the nucleolus may have a role - though as is always the case, cause and effect in relationships with other aspects of aging are hard to pin down. As one might guess, this largely relates to stress responses, quality control, and damage repair within the cell. These line items are important in the way in which the operation of cellular metabolism determines natural variations in the pace of aging between species and between individuals within species. While the nucleolus is primarily responsible for building the ribosome structures where proteins are assembled, it has been found to play a part in a wide range of other cellular activities. Evolution tends to generate systems in which any given component has many and varied functions, and everything within a cell is connected to everything else. This is an example of the broad, dominant class of aging research that is purely investigative. Most research into the detailed mechanisms of degenerative aging is very far removed from any thought of application, and it is lucky happenstance when such an opportunity does arise. Systems very closely tied to cellular housekeeping, or responses to stress, or replication seem unlikely to result in the foundations of truly effective therapies. We can look at calorie restriction or exercise, both of which alter all of the above items quite profoundly and throughout...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs