Research Perspective|Volume 2, Issue 6|pp 369—374

Sestrins at the crossroad between stress and aging

Jun Hee Lee¹, Rolf Bodmer², Ethan Bier³, Michael Karin¹

¹Laboratory of Gene Regulation and Signal Transduction, Departments of Pharmacology and Pathology, School of Medicine, University of California San Diego (UCSD), La Jolla, CA 92093-0723, USA
²Development and Aging Program, Neuroscience, Aging and Stem Cell Research Center, Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA
³Section of Cell and Developmental Biology, UCSD, La Jolla, CA 92093-0349, USA

Received: June 9, 2010Accepted: June 12, 2010Published: June 13, 2010

Copyright: © 2010 Lee et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Sestrins are a family of stress-inducible proteins that can function as antioxidants and as inhibitors of target of rapamycin complex 1. In this research perspective, we discuss the possible roles of Sestrins in diverse stress-induced patho-physiological contexts that can result in premature aging and age-related diseases. We suggest that Sestrins provide critical feedback regulation that adjust metabolic and stress responses to different environmental cues and evolutionary constraints.