Parental Age Effect on the Longevity and Healthspan of Flies and Worms
11-21-2023“[...] little work [has been] published on the effect of parental age in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, a common model organism for aging studies.”
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BUFFALO, NY- November 21, 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 21, entitled, “Parental age effect on the longevity and healthspan in Drosophila melanogaster and Caenorhabditis elegans.”
Several studies have investigated the effect of parental age on biological parameters such as reproduction, lifespan, and health; however, the results have been inconclusive, largely due to inter-species variation and/or modest effect sizes.
In their new study, researchers Camille Lenzi, Alexis Piat, Pascal Schlich, Judith Ducau, Jean-Claude Bregliano, Hugo Aguilaniu, and Anne Laurençon from the IM Projet, Caduceum, INRAE, IBDM, Instituto Serrapilheira, and Universite Claude Bernard-Lyon 1 examined the effect of parental age on the lifespan, reproductive capacity, and locomotor activity of genetic isogenic lines of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans and the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster.
“We decided to investigate parental age impact on the lifespan of their progeny on selected genomes of flies and worms to gain insights on the molecular mechanisms at work.”
The researchers found that the progeny of successive generations of old parents had significantly shorter lifespans than the progeny of young parents in both species. Moreover, they investigated the fertility, fecundity, and locomotor activity of C. elegans. Interestingly, both the shorter lifespan and deteriorated healthspan of the progeny were significantly improved by switching to only one generation of younger parents.
“Collectively, these data demonstrate that the detrimental effect of older parental age on the longevity of the progeny can be reversed, suggesting the existence of a beneficial non–genetic mechanism.”
Read the full study: DOI: https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.205098
Corresponding Author: Anne Laurençon
Corresponding Email: anne.laurencon@ens-lyon.fr
Keywords: life span, intergenerational plasticity, maternal effect, nematode, drosophila
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About Aging-US:
Aging publishes research papers in all fields of aging research including but not limited, aging from yeast to mammals, cellular senescence, age-related diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s diseases and their prevention and treatment, anti-aging strategies and drug development and especially the role of signal transduction pathways such as mTOR in aging and potential approaches to modulate these signaling pathways to extend lifespan. The journal aims to promote treatment of age-related diseases by slowing down aging, validation of anti-aging drugs by treating age-related diseases, prevention of cancer by inhibiting aging. Cancer and COVID-19 are age-related diseases.
Aging is indexed by PubMed/Medline (abbreviated as “Aging (Albany NY)”), PubMed Central, Web of Science: Science Citation Index Expanded (abbreviated as “Aging‐US” and listed in the Cell Biology and Geriatrics & Gerontology categories), Scopus (abbreviated as “Aging” and listed in the Cell Biology and Aging categories), Biological Abstracts, BIOSIS Previews, EMBASE, META (Chan Zuckerberg Initiative) (2018-2022), and Dimensions (Digital Science).
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