The human lifespan involves continuous birth, aging, and death. Over the years, scientists have spent time, resources, and energy trying to uncover the mystery behind the aging of cells. Medical research and technology are helping people live long, fruitful lives. However, there are still more approaches and methods to be discovered.
Anti Aging Before After
Indeed, it is possible to have an extended lifespan with the innovations being made in the world of bioengineering. The age of genomic sequencing has made it possible by simply building synthetic networks that are similar to their biological counterparts. Synthetic networks like cellular counters, genetic oscillators, toggle switches, and multistability have been constructed.
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Zhen Zhou and his colleagues have built a gene oscillator that can halt the aging process of yeast cells and promote long lifespan. They carefully studied the replicative aging in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a species of yeast, which they identified as having “well-conserved genetic factors” that promote long life in eukaryotes.
The lysine deacetylase Sir2 and HAP complex
They identified the lysine deacetylase Sir2 and heme-activated protein (HAP) complex which are gene regulators and which they confirmed were responsible for cellular aging and life cycle in yeast.
Sir2 is responsible for maintaining chromatin silencing, genomic loci stability, and nucleoli integrity, and HAP regulates specific genes that function in heme biogenesis and mitochondrial function. The scientists tracked both functions using fluorescent proteins.
The crux of the experiment was to alter the Sir2/HAP system to restructure and reprogram the yeast cell toward a longer lifespan. They developed a synthetic gene oscillator model that generated negative feedback between Sir2/HAP that led to their sustained oscillation and continuous expression.
They observed variability in oscillations amongst different cells. Up to 65% of the cells experienced sustained oscillations while 35% experienced sustained oscillations until later in the life cycle when they deviated and accumulated causing cell death.
Longevity for humans
In general, they observed significant lifespan extension by 82% amongst the cells. They reported it as “the most pronounced lifespan extension in yeast” that they’ve ever observed. They also recorded a 105% increase in lifespan amongst the cells which did not deviate during the experiment. The cells showed elongation of cell cycles and aging was significantly delayed.
So far, this has achieved a key goal in bioengineering; using engineering principles to regulate and change normal biological processes. The two genetic regulators have been identified in humans, which makes it possible to achieve the method. If long life can be achieved in yeast, then hopefully it can be achieved in humans.
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These findings can be therapeutically applied to extending the lifespan of human cells and solving the complex problem of degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
However, there are subtle concerns regarding the method. Engineered cells might not be able to resist certain aspects of environmental stress which might lead to malfunction of some specific areas in the cells. Also, the method was tried in yeast, which is a one-celled organism, humans are complex and skepticism has been raised concerning its success. These are just concerns and have not been proven yet.
The synthetic gene oscillator method has yielded promising results. More studies need to be carried out to fully understand each step and device pathways for human application.
References
Zhou, Z., Liu, Y., Feng, Y., Klepin, S., Tsimring, L. S., Pillus, L., Hasty, J., & Hao, N. (2023). Engineering longevity-design of a synthetic gene oscillator to slow cellular aging. Science (New York, N.Y.), 380(6643), 376–381. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.add7631
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