Aging at Evolutionary Crossroads: Longitudinal Gene Co-expression Network Analyses of Proximal and Ultimate Causes of Aging in Bats.

ABSTRACT: How, when, and why do organisms, their tissues, and their cells age remain challenging issues, although researchers have identified multiple mechanistic causes of aging, and three major evolutionary theories have been developed to unravel the ultimate causes of organismal aging. A central hypothesis of these theories is that the strength of natural selection decreases with age. However, empirical evidence on when, why, and how organisms age is phylogenetically limited, especially in natural populations. Here, we developed generic comparisons of gene co-expression networks that quantify and dissect the heterogeneity of gene co-expression in conspecific individuals from different age-classes to provide topological evidence about some mechanical and fundamental causes of organismal aging. We

SUBMITTER: Bernard G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8763092 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature