Promoting Autophagy to Restore Function in the Aging Liver

The processes of autophagy recycle damaged and unwanted structures and proteins in cells. Increased autophagy is involved in the beneficial response to calorie restriction and numerous other mild forms of stress. A range of potential approaches to upregulate autophagy have been explored by the research community, but few have made much progress towards the clinic. It is entirely possible that increased autophagy is more beneficial in some tissues than in others - or to put it another way, perhaps some tissues are much more impaired than others by age-related loss of autophagy. Some of the most impressive data has centered on improved autophagy in the aging liver via LAMP2A upregulation, showing sizable increases in function. Again, these demonstrations have yet to make the transition to clinical medicine. Aging leads to the accumulation of lipofuscin in the lysosome, which impairs the efficiency of autophagic enzymes. Moreover, aging causes a significant decrease in the number of autophagosomes, which may be related to the decline of activation capacity of AMPK. It further reduces autophagy activity. Liver resection not only triggers liver regeneration, but also induces autophagy of hepatocytes. Autophagy plays a crucial role in liver regeneration. Liver regeneration requires abundant energy, which is among others generated by recycling intracellular macromolecules derived from damaged organelles. Autophagy activity in aged liver is significantly reduced compa...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs