Fountain of youth in bile? Longevity molecule identified
Discovery from Concordia University researchers published in journal Aging
2010-09-15
(Press-News.org) Montreal September 15, 2010 – The human quest for longer life may be one step closer, thanks to research from Concordia University. Published in the journal Aging, a new study is the first to identify the role of a bile acid, called lithocholic acid (LCA), in extending the lifespan of normally aging yeast. The findings may have significant implications for human longevity and health, as yeast share some common elements with people.
"Although we found that LCA greatly extends yeast longevity, yeast do not synthesize this or any other bile acid found in mammals," says senior author Vladimir Titorenko, Concordia University Research Chair in Genomics, Cell Biology and Aging and a professor in the Department of Biology. "It may be that yeast have evolved to sense bile acids as mildly toxic molecules and respond by undergoing life-extending changes. It is conceivable that the life-extending potential of LCA may be relevant to humans as well."
Over 19 000 small molecules screened
Titorenko and colleagues screened more than 19 000 small molecules to test their ability to extend yeast-lifespan. Under both normal and stressed conditions, LCA had a major impact.
"Our findings imply that LCA extends longevity by targeting two different mechanisms," says first author Alexander Goldberg, a Concordia doctoral student. "The first takes place regardless of the number of calories and involves the day-to-day or housekeeping proteins. The second system occurs during calorie-restriction and involves stressor proteins."
"Regardless of their triggers both of these mechanisms work to suppress the pro-aging process," he continues.
Bile acids may be beneficial to health
"Although we have an overall idea how LCA works to extend longevity in yeast, we still need to determine if this is the case for other species," says Titorenko. "We do know from previous studies, however, that bile acids are beneficial to health and longevity. For example, they have shown to accumulate in the serum of long living mice and play a role in improving rodent liver and pancreatic function."
"This leads us to believe that bile acids have potential as pharmaceutical agents for the treatment of diabetes, obesity and various metabolic disorders, all of which are age-related," continues Titorenko. "They may indeed offer hope for a healthy aging life."
INFORMATION:
Partners in research:
This study was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Concordia University Chair Fund.
About the study:
The paper, "Chemical genetic screen identifies lithocholic acid as an anti‐aging compound that extends yeast chronological life span in a TOR independent manner, by modulating housekeeping longevity assurance processes," published in the journal Aging, was authored by Alexander A. Goldberg, Vincent R. Richard, Pavlo Kyryakov, Simon D. Bourque, Adam Beach, Michelle T. Burstein, Anastasia Glebov, Olivia Koupaki, Tatiana Boukh‐Viner, Christopher Gregg, Mylène Juneau, Ann M. English and Vladimir I. Titorenko of Concordia University, David Y. Thomas of McGill University.
On the Web:
Cited Aging study: www.impactaging.com/papers/v2/n7/pdf/100168.pdf
Concordia University: www.concordia.ca
Concordia Department of Biology: http://clone.concordia.ca/bioweb
Media contact:
Sylvain-Jacques Desjardins
Senior advisor, media relations
University Communications Services
Concordia University
Phone: 514-848-2424, ext. 5068
Email: s-j.desjardins@concordia.ca
Twitter: http://twitter.com/concordianews
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2010-09-15
AUSTIN, Texas—The development of new organic batteries—lightweight energy storage devices that work without the need for toxic heavy metals—has a brighter future now that chemists have discovered a new way to pass electrons back and forth between two molecules.
The research is also a necessary step toward creating artificial photosynthesis, where fuel could be generated directly from the sun, much as plants do.
University of Texas at Austin chemists Christopher Bielawski and Jonathan Sessler led the research, which was published in Science.
When molecules meet, they ...
2010-09-15
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists and their partners have announced the preliminary release of the sequenced genome of the cacao tree, an achievement that will help sustain the supply of high-quality cocoa to the $17 billion U.S. chocolate industry and protect the livelihoods of small farmers around the world by speeding up development, through traditional breeding techniques, of trees better equipped to resist the droughts, diseases and pests that threaten this vital agricultural crop.
The effort is the result of a partnership between USDA's Agricultural ...
2010-09-15
Want to know how a Japanese person is feeling? Pay attention to the tone of his voice, not his face. That's what other Japanese people would do, anyway. A new study examines how Dutch and Japanese people assess others' emotions and finds that Dutch people pay attention to the facial expression more than Japanese people do.
"As humans are social animals, it's important for humans to understand the emotional state of other people to maintain good relationships," says Akihiro Tanaka of Waseda Institute for Advanced Study in Japan. "When a man is smiling, probably he is happy, ...
2010-09-15
Scientists at the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research (SFBR) in San Antonio have found a gene that causes high levels of bad cholesterol to accumulate in the blood as a result of a high-cholesterol diet.
Researchers studied a strain of laboratory opossums developed at SFBR that has normal blood levels of "bad" low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol when fed a standard low-cholesterol diet, but extremely elevated levels of LDL cholesterol when fed a high-cholesterol diet. These high-responding opossums are used to identify the genes and the underlying mechanisms ...
2010-09-15
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- A first draft of the cacao genome is complete, a consortium of academic, governmental, and industry scientists announced today. Indiana University Bloomington scientists performed much of the sequencing work, which is described and detailed at http://www.cacaogenomedb.org/, the official website of the Cacao Genome Database project.
Despite being led and funded by a private company, Mars Inc., Cacao Genome Database scientists say one of their chief concerns has been making sure the Theobroma cacao genome data was published for all to see -- especially ...
2010-09-15
A new technology for removing water from ultrafine coal slurry has been successfully tested at the commercial scale at an operating coal cleaning plant. The technology offers the possibility of reducing the coal slurry impoundment problem from the source. A peer-reviewed paper on this new technology was presented Sept. 15 at the 13th Australian Coal Preparation Society Conference, Cairns, Queensland.
Cleaning coal after it has been mined is done with water. The bulk of the coal mined is relatively coarse in size and, therefore, can be readily washed of impurities and ...
2010-09-15
BOSTON—Cancer patients who die in the hospital or an intensive care unit have worse quality of life at the end-of-life, compared to patients who die at home with hospice services, and their caregivers are at higher risk for developing psychiatric illnesses during bereavement, according to a study by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
One striking finding of the study, reported in the September 13th issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, was that bereaved caregivers of patients who died in an intensive care unit (ICU) were five times more likely to be diagnosed ...
2010-09-15
Reducing the delivery of nutrients to the Chesapeake Bay is one of the most important components of restoration efforts to achieve a healthy Bay ecosystem. The USGS has developed a new method for tracking the progress toward reducing nitrogen and phosphorus delivery from the watershed to the Bay.
"The public and public officials care deeply about progress towards clean water goals for the Chesapeake Bay and other impaired waters of the Nation," said Robert Hirsch, USGS Research Hydrologist who led the development of this new method. "We developed the new technique and ...
2010-09-15
The number of times our cells can divide is dictated by telomeres, stretches of DNA at the tips of our chromosomes. Understanding how telomeres keep our chromosomes – and by extension, our genomes – intact is an area of intense scientific focus in the fields of both aging and cancer. Now, scientists at The Wistar Institute have published the first detailed report on the structure and function of a crucial domain in the protein known as Cdc13, which sustains telomeres by clamping to DNA and recruiting replicating enzymes to the area.
While the nature of this portion of ...
2010-09-15
Hurricane Igor is a monster hurricane in terms of strength and size. To get a perspective on its size, it is the same distance from one end of the storm to the other as it is from Boston, Mass. to Richmond, Va., some 550 miles. That's a 10-hour drive from one end to the other, and NASA satellites captured that entire distance in one image.
Because Hurricane Igor is a large storm and even if Igor doesn't make a direct landfall in Bermuda, the extent of the winds (the wind field) is so large that the National Hurricane Center noted that Bermuda can be buffeted by winds ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Fountain of youth in bile? Longevity molecule identified
Discovery from Concordia University researchers published in journal Aging
