Reviewing Recent Research into the Relationship between Autophagy and Aging

The authors of today's open access review paper focus on recent research into autophagy and aging, specifically work using flies as the model organism. Autophagy is the name given to a collection of cellular maintenance processes responsible for recycling damaged cell components, molecular machinery, and metabolic waste. In chaperone-mediated autophagy, selective chaperone proteins pick up other molecules and carry them to lysosomes for disassembly. In macroautophagy, unwanted cellular components are engulfed by an autophagosome, which then travels to a lysosome and fuses with it. In microautophagy, a lysosome engulfs the material to be recycled directly. A lysosome is always the end of the journey, where a mix of enzymes reduces structures and molecules into component parts suitable for reuse. A sizable majority of the interventions proven to slow aging in short-lived laboratory species (such as flies) involve increased autophagy. Many, such as calorie restriction, do not produce benefits at all in the absence of functional autophagy. When cells are better maintained over time, with less outstanding molecular damage that can cause further downstream consequences, the outcome is a slower pace of decline into age-related dysfunction and disease. This has led to a wide range of research projects, and at least one startup biotech company, focused on trying to produce therapies capable of boosting the operation of autophagy to improve human health. The plausible siz...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs