RAGE and Chronic Inflammation in Aging

Chronic inflammation is a very important downstream consequence of molecular damage in the progression of aging, arising from numerous causes. The past decade of work on the presence of lingering senescent cells in old tissues indicates that their signaling is significant cause. In animal studies, removing senescent cells can reverse the course of many age-related and other conditions that are primarily inflammatory in nature. Visceral fat tissue in excess amounts can accelerate the production of senescent cells, but it also generates inflammation through other mechanisms, such as debris from dead cells, signaling by non-senescent fat cells that resembles the signaling of infected cells, and so forth. There are also numerous other contributing factors relating to the growing dysfunction of the immune system, or some of the metabolic issues that accompany excess fat tissue. The one examined in today's open access paper is the interaction of advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) with the receptor for AGEs (RAGE). There are a couple of different issues in aging, type 2 diabetes, and obesity relating to AGEs. The more interesting one for the SENS rejuvenation research community is the accumulation of persistent cross-links in the extracellular matrix formed from glucosepane; these cross-links degrade tissue elasticity, which in turn contributes to hypertension via arterial stiffening, among many other issues. However, there are many other short-lived AGEs that arise from ...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs