Project description:Cellular senescence is a crucial biological process associated with pathologies of aging. The elimination of senescent cells (SnCs) for the purpose to extend healthy lifespan has been supported by emerging evidence, which causes the exploration of drug approaches to induce SnCs death (senolysis). The challenge then becomes how to achieve the precision, broad-spectrum and controllability of senolysis. To this end, we here propose an unprecedented integration strategy to design a senotherapeutic agent
Project description:Emerging evidence supports the use of pharmaceutical interventions to target senescent cells (SnCs) and induce their death (senolysis) to extend a healthy lifespan. The challenge then becomes how to achieve precise, broad-spectrum and tractable senolysis. To this end, we have designed a novel senotherapeutic agent with an unprecedented integrated strategy
Project description:The risk of type 2 diabetes increases with age. Although changes in function and proliferation of aged beta cells resemble those preceding the development of diabetes, the contribution of beta cell aging and senescence remains unclear. The proportion of aged beta cells increases with animal age but even in young mice, senescent beta cells can be found. We showed that different models of insulin resistance accelerated aging and senescence marker expression in beta cells, BGal, led to loss of function and impaired glucose tolerance. Clearance of p16Ink4a+ cells, using the INK-ATTAC mouse model, ameliorated glucose metabolism, insulin secretion and decreased expression of aging, senescence and SASP genes in pancreatic islets. Senolytic drug ABT263 also improved glucose metabolism and beta cell identity when administered during insulin resistance. Human beta cells from diabetic and non-diabetic donors shared some of the same biology laying the foundation for translation into humans. These novel findings lay the framework to pursue senolysis of beta cells as a preventive and alleviating strategy for T2D.
Project description:The retina is a light-sensitive highly-organized tissue, which is vulnerable to aging and age-related retinal diseases. However, the effects of aging on retinal cell types including those present in neural retina and retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), as well as cell types in choroid layer remain largely unknown. Here, we established the single-cell transcriptomic atlas of the retina and adjacent choroid in young and aged non-human primates (NHPs), identifying 15 cell types with distinct gene expression signatures and finding several novel markers. Our analysis reveals that oxidative stress is a major aging feature of the cells in the neural retinal layer, whereas an enhanced inflammatory response is that of RPE and choroidal cells. We also found that the RPE cell is the cell type most susceptible to aging in retina, as evidenced by the decreased cell density as well as the highest numbers of differentially expressed genes overlapping with genes underlying aging and aging-related retinal diseases, along with aberrant cell-cell interactions with its two adjacent layers. Altogether, our study provides the roadmap for understanding retinal aging in a NHP model at single-cell resolution, enabling the identification of new diagnostic biomarkers and potential therapeutic targets for age-related human retinal disorders.
Project description:Aging is accompanied by the functional decline of all tissues, but it is still largely unknown how aging impacts different tissues in a cell type-specific manner. Here, we present the Aging Fly Cell Atlas (AFCA) that includes single-nucleus transcriptomes of the entire Drosophila head and body from both males and females at four different ages. We characterize 162 distinct cell types and present an in-depth analysis of cell type-specific aging features, including changes of cell composition, gene expression, number of expressed genes, transcriptome noise, and cell identity. By combining all aging features, including aging clock models predicting a cell’s age, we find cell-type specific aging patterns. Adipose tissues showed the highest aging score, followed by two cell types from the reproductive system. This transcriptomic atlas provides a valuable resource for the community to study fundamental principles of aging in complex organisms.
Project description:Human aging is associated with skeletal muscle atrophy and functional impairment (sarcopenia). Multiple lines of evidence suggest that mitochondrial dysfunction is a major contributor to sarcopenia. We evaluated whether healthy aging was associated with a transcriptional profile reflecting mitochondrial impairment and whether resistance exercise could reverse this signature to that approximating a younger physiological age. Skeletal muscle biopsies from healthy older (N = 25) and younger (N = 26) adult men and women were compared using gene expression profiling, and a subset of these were related to measurements of muscle strength. 14 of the older adults had muscle samples taken before and after a six-month resistance exercise-training program. Before exercise training, older adults were 59% weaker than younger, but after six months of training in older adults, strength improved significantly (P<0.001) such that they were only 38% lower than young adults. As a consequence of age, we found 596 genes differentially expressed using a false discovery rate cut-off of 5%. Prior to the exercise training, the transcriptome profile showed a dramatic enrichment of genes associated with mitochondrial function with age. However, following exercise training the transcriptional signature of aging was markedly reversed back to that of younger levels for most genes that were affected by both age and exercise. We conclude that healthy older adults show evidence of mitochondrial impairment and muscle weakness, but that this can be partially reversed at the phenotypic level, and substantially reversed at the transcriptome level, following six months of resistance exercise training. Keywords: resistance exercise, muscle, aging
Project description:Efficiency of labelling by photoactivatable/clickable myristate probes X3/X8/X10 is compared to the positive control probe YnMyr. Additionally, negative controls for each probe were obtained by treatment with NMT ihibitor IMP-366 (DDD85464). The resulting data indicates efficient labeling of NMT substrates by photoactivatable probes that is NMT-dependent.