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Skulachev VP, Shilovsky GA, Putyatina TS, Popov NA, Markov AV, Skulachev MV, Sadovnichii VA. Perspectives of Homo sapiens lifespan extension: focus on external or internal resources? Aging (Albany NY) 2020; 12:5566-5584. [PMID: 32229707 PMCID: PMC7138562 DOI: 10.18632/aging.102981] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/20/2020] [Accepted: 03/24/2020] [Indexed: 01/01/2023]
Abstract
Homo sapiens and naked mole rats (Heterocephalus glaber) are vivid examples of social mammals that differ from their relatives in particular by an increased lifespan and a large number of neotenic features. An important fact for biogerontology is that the mortality rate of H. glaber (a maximal lifespan of more than 32 years, which is very large for such a small rodent) negligibly grows with age. The same is true for modern people in developed countries below the age of 60. It is important that the juvenilization of traits that separate humans from chimpanzees evolved over thousands of generations and millions of years. Rapid advances in technology resulted in a sharp increase in the life expectancy of human beings during the past 100 years. Currently, the human life expectancy has exceeded 80 years in developed countries. It cannot be excluded that the potential for increasing life expectancy by an improvement in living conditions will be exhausted after a certain period of time. New types of geroprotectors should be developed that protect not only from chronic phenoptosis gradual poisoning of the body with reactive oxygen species (ROS) but also from acute phenoptosis, where strong increase in the level of ROS immediately kills an already aged individual. Geroprotectors might be another anti-aging strategy along with neoteny (a natural physiological phenomenon) and technical progress.
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Affiliation(s)
- Vladimir P Skulachev
- Belozersky Institute of Physico-Chemical Biology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow 119991, Russia
| | - Gregory A Shilovsky
- Belozersky Institute of Physico-Chemical Biology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow 119991, Russia.,Institute for Information Transmission Problems, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 127051, Russia.,Faculty of Biology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow 119991, Russia
| | - Tatyana S Putyatina
- Faculty of Biology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow 119991, Russia
| | - Nikita A Popov
- Faculty of Bioengineering and Bioinformatics, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow 119991, Russia
| | - Alexander V Markov
- Faculty of Biology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow 119991, Russia.,Paleontological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 117997, Russia
| | - Maxim V Skulachev
- Belozersky Institute of Physico-Chemical Biology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow 119991, Russia
| | - Victor A Sadovnichii
- Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow 119991, Russia
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Shilovsky GA, Putyatina TS, Ashapkin VV, Rozina AA, Lyubetsky VA, Minina EP, Bychkovskaia IB, Markov AV, Skulachev VP. Ants as Object of Gerontological Research. BIOCHEMISTRY (MOSCOW) 2019; 83:1489-1503. [PMID: 30878024 DOI: 10.1134/s0006297918120076] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/24/2023]
Abstract
Social insects with identical genotype that form castes with radically different lifespans are a promising model system for studying the mechanisms underlying longevity. The main direction of progressive evolution of social insects, in particular, ants, is the development of the social way of life inextricably linked with the increase in the colony size. Only in a large colony, it is possible to have a developed polyethism, create large food reserves, and actively regulate the nest microclimate. The lifespan of ants hugely varies among genetically similar queens, workers (unproductive females), and males. The main advantage of studies on insects is the determinism of ontogenetic processes, with a single genome leading to completely different lifespans in different castes. This high degree of determinacy is precisely the reason why some researchers (incorrectly) call a colony of ants the "superorganism", emphasizing the fact that during the development, depending on the community needs, ants can switch their ontogenetic programs, which influences their social roles, ability to learn (i.e., the brain [mushroom-like body] plasticity), and, respectively, the spectrum of tasks performed by a given individual. It has been shown that in many types of food behavior, older ants surpass young ones in both performing the tasks and transferring the experience. The balance between the need to reduce the "cost" of non-breeding individuals (short lifespan and small size of workers) and the benefit from experienced long-lived workers possessing useful skills (large size and "non-aging") apparently determines the differences in the lifespan and aging rate of workers in different species of ants. A large spectrum of rigidly determined ontogenetic trajectories in different castes with identical genomes and the possibility of comparison between "evolutionarily advanced" and "primitive" subfamilies (e.g., Formicinae and Ponerinae) make ants an attractive object in the studies of both normal aging and effects of anti-aging drugs.
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Affiliation(s)
- G A Shilovsky
- Belozersky Institute of Physico-Chemical Biology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, 119991, Russia. .,Lomonosov Moscow State University, Faculty of Biology, Moscow, 119234, Russia.,Institute for Information Transmission Problems, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 127051, Russia
| | - T S Putyatina
- Lomonosov Moscow State University, Faculty of Biology, Moscow, 119234, Russia
| | - V V Ashapkin
- Belozersky Institute of Physico-Chemical Biology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, 119991, Russia
| | - A A Rozina
- Belozersky Institute of Physico-Chemical Biology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, 119991, Russia
| | - V A Lyubetsky
- Institute for Information Transmission Problems, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 127051, Russia
| | - E P Minina
- Belozersky Institute of Physico-Chemical Biology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, 119991, Russia
| | - I B Bychkovskaia
- Nikiforov Center of Emergency and Radiation Medicine of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Control, St. Petersburg, 194044, Russia
| | - A V Markov
- Lomonosov Moscow State University, Faculty of Biology, Moscow, 119234, Russia
| | - V P Skulachev
- Belozersky Institute of Physico-Chemical Biology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, 119991, Russia
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Shilovsky GA, Putyatina TS, Ashapkin VV, Luchkina OS, Markov AV. Coefficient of Variation of Lifespan Across the Tree of Life: Is It a Signature of Programmed Aging? BIOCHEMISTRY (MOSCOW) 2018; 82:1480-1492. [PMID: 29486698 DOI: 10.1134/s0006297917120070] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/23/2022]
Abstract
Measurements of variation are of great importance for studying the stability of pathological phenomena and processes. For the biology of aging, it is very important not only to determine average mortality, but also to study its stability in time and the size of fluctuations that are indicated by the variation coefficient of lifespan (CVLS). It is believed that a relatively small (~20%) value of CVLS in humans, comparable to the coefficients of variation of other events programmed in ontogenesis (for example, menarche and menopause), indicates a relatively rigid determinism (N. S. Gavrilova et al. (2012) Biochemistry (Moscow), 77, 754-760). To assess the prevalence of this phenomenon, we studied the magnitude of CVLS, as well as the coefficients of skewness and kurtosis in diverse representatives of the animal kingdom using data provided by the Institute for Demographic Research (O. R. Jones et al. (2014) Nature, 505, 169-173). We found that, unlike humans and laboratory animals, in most examined species the values of CVLS are rather high, indicating heterogeneity of the lifespan in the cohorts studied. This is probably due to the large influence of background mortality, as well as the non-monotonicity of total mortality in the wild, especially at the earliest ages. One way to account for this influence is to "truncate" the data (removing the earliest and latest ages from consideration). To reveal the effect of this procedure, we proposed a new indicator, the stability coefficient of mortality dynamics, which indicates how quickly CVLS is reduced to values that characterize a relatively homogeneous population (33%) when the data are "truncated". Such indicators facilitate the use of the parameters of survival curves for analysis of the effects of geroprotectors, lifestyle, and other factors on lifespan, and for the quantification of relative contributions of genetic and environmental factors to the dynamics of aging in human and animal populations, including those living in the wild.
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Affiliation(s)
- G A Shilovsky
- Belozersky Institute of Physico-Chemical Biology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, 119991, Russia.
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Shilovsky GA, Putyatina TS, Lysenkov SN, Ashapkin VV, Luchkina OS, Markov AV, Skulachev VP. Is It Possible to Prove the Existence of an Aging Program by Quantitative Analysis of Mortality Dynamics? BIOCHEMISTRY (MOSCOW) 2017; 81:1461-1476. [PMID: 28259123 DOI: 10.1134/s0006297916120075] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/23/2022]
Abstract
Accumulation of various types of lesions in the course of aging increases an organism's vulnerability and results in a monotonous elevation of mortality rate, irrespective of the position of a species on the evolutionary tree. Stroustrup et al. (Nature, 530, 103-107) [1] showed in 2016 that in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, longevity-altering factors (e.g. oxidative stress, temperature, or diet) do not change the shape of the survival curve, but either stretch or shrink it along the time axis, which the authors attributed to the existence of an "aging program". Modification of the accelerated failure time model by Stroustrup et al. uses temporal scaling as a basic approach for distinguishing between quantitative and qualitative changes in aging dynamics. Thus we analyzed data on the effects of various longevity-increasing genetic manipulations in flies, worms, and mice and used several models to choose a theory that would best fit the experimental results. The possibility to identify the moment of switch from a mortality-governing pathway to some other pathways might be useful for testing geroprotective drugs. In this work, we discuss this and other aspects of temporal scaling.
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Affiliation(s)
- G A Shilovsky
- Lomonosov Moscow State University, Belozersky Institute of Physico-Chemical Biology, Moscow, 119991, Russia.
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Abstract
Aging has been explained in terms of an accumulation of mutations in the genome of somatic cells, leading to tissue atrophy and neoplasms, as well as increased loss of function. Recent advances in transgenic mouse modeling and genomics technology have created, for the first time, the opportunity to begin testing this theory. In this paper the existing evidence for a possible role of somatic mutation accumulation in aging will be re-evaluated on the basis of the evolutionary logic of aging and recent insights in genome structure and function. New strategies for investigating the relationship between genome instability, mutation accumulation and aging will be discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- J Vijg
- Cancer Therapy and Research Center and University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, TX 78229, USA.
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