Predicting lifespan-extending chemical compounds for C. elegans with machine learning
2023-07-26
(Press-News.org)
“We created datasets for predicting whether or not a compound extends the lifespan of C. elegans [...]”
BUFFALO, NY- July 26, 2023 – A new research paper was published in Aging (listed by MEDLINE/PubMed as "Aging (Albany NY)" and "Aging-US" by Web of Science) Volume 15, Issue 13, entitled, “Predicting lifespan-extending chemical compounds for C. elegans with machine learning and biologically interpretable features.”
Recently, there has been a growing interest in the development of pharmacological interventions targeting aging, as well as in the use of machine learning for analyzing aging-related data. In this new study, researchers Caio Ribeiro, Christopher K. Farmer, João Pedro de Magalhães, and Alex A. Freitas from the University of Kent and University of Birmingham use machine learning methods to analyze data from DrugAge, a database of chemical compounds (including drugs) modulating lifespan in model organisms.
“To this end, we created four types of datasets for predicting whether or not a compound extends the lifespan of C. elegans (the most frequent model organism in DrugAge), using four different types of predictive biological features, based on: compound-protein interactions, interactions between compounds and proteins encoded by aging-related genes, and two types of terms annotated for proteins targeted by the compounds, namely Gene Ontology (GO) terms and physiology terms from the WormBase’s Phenotype Ontology.”
To analyze these datasets, the researchers used a combination of feature selection methods in a data pre-processing phase and the well-established random forest algorithm for learning predictive models from the selected features. In addition, they interpreted the most important features in the two best models in light of the biology of aging. One noteworthy feature was the GO term “Glutathione metabolic process”, which plays an important role in cellular redox homeostasis and detoxification. The team also predicted the most promising novel compounds for extending lifespan from a list of previously unlabelled compounds. These include nitroprusside, which is used as an antihypertensive medication.
“Overall, our work opens avenues for future work in employing machine learning to predict novel life-extending compounds.”
Read the full paper: DOI: https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.204866
Corresponding Authors: Caio Ribeiro, Alex A. Freitas
Corresponding Emails: C.E.Ribeiro@kent.ac.uk, A.A.Freitas@kent.ac.uk
Keywords: lifespan-extension compounds, longevity drugs, machine learning, feature selection
Sign up for free Altmetric alerts about this article: https://aging.altmetric.com/details/email_updates?id=10.18632%2Faging.https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.204866
About Aging-US:
Launched in 2009, Aging publishes papers of general interest and biological significance in all fields of aging research and age-related diseases, including cancer—and now, with a special focus on COVID-19 vulnerability as an age-dependent syndrome. Topics in Aging go beyond traditional gerontology, including, but not limited to, cellular and molecular biology, human age-related diseases, pathology in model organisms, signal transduction pathways (e.g., p53, sirtuins, and PI-3K/AKT/mTOR, among others), and approaches to modulating these signaling pathways.
Please visit our website at www.Aging-US.com and connect with us:
SoundCloud
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
YouTube
LabTube
LinkedIn
Reddit
Pinterest
Click here to subscribe to Aging publication updates.
For media inquiries, please contact media@impactjournals.com.
Aging (Aging-US) Journal Office
6666 E. Quaker Str., Suite 1B
Orchard Park, NY 14127
Phone: 1-800-922-0957, option 1
###
END
[Attachments] See images for this press release:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2023-07-26
“We believe that KIAA0930 would be a novel cachexia therapeutic target.”
BUFFALO, NY- July 26, 2023 – A new research paper was published in Oncotarget's Volume 14 on July 20, 2023, entitled, “The uncharacterized transcript KIAA0930 confers a cachexic phenotype on cancer cells.”
Patients with cancer cachexia have a poor prognosis and impaired quality of life. Numerous studies using preclinical models have shown that inflammatory cytokines play an important role in the development of cancer cachexia; however, no clinical trial targeting cytokines has been successful. Therefore, ...
2023-07-26
The lifespan of a small roundworm that has been used as a key model organism in ageing research is limited by how it self-sacrifices to feed its young, finds a new study led by UCL researchers.
The authors of the new Nature Communications paper say their findings raise questions about how well insights from the Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) worm can be translated to human ageing advances.
C. elegans is widely used as a laboratory animal, and has been central to ageing research for 40 years thanks to discoveries of genes that can be supressed to produce up to a tenfold increase in ...
2023-07-26
China has set itself the goal of reaching its peak of carbon dioxide emissions in 2030 and thereafter to reduce emissions to reach carbon neutrality by 2060. To achieve this, it needs to increase photovoltaic (PV) and wind power to 10-15 petawatt hours (PWh) by 2060.
However, according to historical installation rates and a recent high-resolution energy-system-model and forecasts based on China's 14th Five-Year Energy Development Programme (CFEDP), the capacity of China for producing non-fossil-fuel energy will reach a maximum of only 9.5 PWh per year by 2060.
Now, an international study with the participation ...
2023-07-26
Viruses, like movie villains, operate in one of two ways: chill or kill.
They can lay low, quietly infiltrating the body’s defenses, or go on the attack, exploding out of hiding and firing in all directions. Viral attacks are almost always suicide missions, ripping apart the cell that the virus has been depending on. The attack can only succeed if enough other healthy cells are around to infect. If the barrage of viral particles hits nothing, the virus cannot sustain itself. It doesn’t die, since viruses aren’t technically alive, but it ceases to function.
So for a virus, the key challenge is deciding when to flip from chill mode into kill mode.
Four years ago, Princeton ...
2023-07-26
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Scientists have unraveled the step-by-step activation process of a protein with a deep evolutionary history in all domains of life, opening the door to harnessing its functions for use as a biotechnology tool.
The protein belongs to the “superfamily” of Argonaute proteins, which previous research has suggested to be involved in gene silencing, a fundamental process known as RNA interference.
These proteins are well-characterized in eukaryotes – the plants, fungi, animals, humans and other life forms with cells that have a defined ...
2023-07-26
URBANA, Ill. — As the global population grows under a changing climate, the urgency to find sustainable protein sources is greater than ever. Plant-based “meat” and “dairy” products may be popular, but they’re not the only environmentally friendly meat alternatives.
A new study in mice from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign suggests replacing traditional protein sources with mealworms in high-fat diets could slow weight gain, improve immune response, reduce inflammation, enhance energy metabolism, and ...
2023-07-26
Exposure to microplastics and nanoplastics — particles smaller than 5 millimeters and 1 micrometer across, respectively — have been linked to adverse health outcomes. Although some of their sources are well known, others haven’t been thoroughly vetted yet. Below are recent papers published in ACS journals that report new insights into the origins of some microscopic plastic pieces: laser-cut acrylic sheets, orthodontic rubber bands and children’s food containers. Reporters can request free access to these papers by emailing newsroom@acs.org.
“Characterization ...
2023-07-26
An Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai study sheds light on the intricate interplay between mammary adipose (fat) tissue and breast health, and offers exciting possibilities for understanding breast development, lactation, cancer, and obesity and related metabolic disorders.
The study was published today in Nature. The research team was led by Prashant Rajbhandari, PhD, Assistant Professor of Medicine (Endocrinology, Diabetes and Bone Disease), and a member of the Diabetes, Obesity, and Metabolism Institute at Icahn Mount Sinai.
The ...
2023-07-26
CLEVELAND - Pancreatic cancer is one of the most difficult cancers to treat, being highly resistant to chemotherapy.
However, there are no effective alternative therapies to chemotherapy, so chemo remains the best available treatment.
Although there are fewer than roughly 60,000 new cases of pancreatic cancer diagnosed annually in the U.S., about 95 percent of people with it die from it, mainly because it often goes undetected in early stages.
Approved multi-agent chemotherapy regimens offer a marginal advance over single-agent ...
2023-07-26
Some of the world’s most distinct and ancient animal species, which play crucial roles in our planet’s ecosystems, are exploited for the wildlife trade across large parts of the world, according to new research from the University of Sheffield.
The study, led by researchers from the University’s School of Biosciences, has found that in large areas of the world, a wide range of functionally and evolutionarily distinct species are targeted for the wildlife trade, which has the potential to cause major losses of evolutionary history and alter key ecological processes.
Published in Nature, the ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Predicting lifespan-extending chemical compounds for C. elegans with machine learning