xCT Knockout Modestly Extends Life in Mice

As a general rule, methods that produce 10-20% life extension in mice are unlikely to prove all that interesting in humans. But it depends on what is going on under the hood. In most cases interventions act on life span by upregulating cellular stress response mechanisms, and there is more than enough evidence to suggest that this category of approaches is far more effective at extending life in short-lived species than is the case in long-lived species such as our own. In this case, the mechanism of interest may be anti-inflammatory, a reduction of age-related chronic inflammation. There is not yet a body of evidence to tell us whether or not this is less interesting in long-lived species such as our own, at the same time as there is a great deal of evidence telling us that chronic inflammation drives many age-related diseases in humans. The cystine/glutamate antiporter system xc- has been identified as the major source of extracellular glutamate in several brain regions as well as a modulator of neuroinflammation, and genetic deletion of its specific subunit xCT (xCT-/-) is protective in mouse models for age-related neurological disorders. However, the previously observed oxidative shift in the plasma cystine/cysteine ratio of adult xCT-/- mice led to the hypothesis that system xc- deletion would negatively affect life- and healthspan. Still, till now the role of system xc- in physiological aging remains unexplored. We therefore studied the effect of xCT del...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs