To many, many people, few scientific topics are as compelling as the field of aging. Although heart disease is the No. 1 killer across nations, the field receives an estimated $1.2 billion in federal research funding, whereas the field of aging alone receives $2.5 billion, more than twice that amount.
Perhaps as part of our survival instinct, many are seeking a scientific fountain of youth.
And it looks like UCLA scientists have finally managed to discover the “fountain of youth” now with a new study demonstrating marked reduction in the rate of aging process in addition to health improvements in fruit flies.
The scientists have figured out a way to extend the life of female fruit flies by 20 percent by manipulating what the school has called a “cellular time machine.”
The approach focuses on mitochondria, the tiny power generators within cells that control the cells’ growth and determine when they live and die. Mitochondria often become damaged with age, and as people grow older, those damaged mitochondria tend to accumulate in the brain, muscles and other organs. When cells can’t eliminate the damaged mitochondria, those mitochondria can become toxic and contribute to a wide range of age-related diseases.
“We
think the fact that the mitochondria become larger and elongated impairs the cell’s ability to clear the damaged mitochondria,” Walker said. “And our research suggests dysfunctional mitochondria accumulate with age, rather than being discarded.”During the course of the research, the team studied mitochondria in fruit flies and figured out that as the insects reach middle age – which, for a fruit fly, is about one month old – their mitochondria change shape, making it tough for their cells to clear them out when the organelles are no longer functioning properly. They therefore gave the flies a hand by increasing a protein called Drp1 for one week when they reached 30 days of age.
The result was that the damaged mitochondrion was broken up into smaller pieces that the flies were able to expel from their cells.
They found that not only led female flies to live about 20 percent longer and male flies to live about 12 percent longer than their typical two-month lifespans, but also discovered that the flies had increased energy levels and endurance.
Taking the study further, the biologists then proceeded to experiment with a protein called Mfn, which keeps mitochondria from clumping together and getting too big for cells to deal with. They were greeted with similar results of benefits in terms of health and life extension.
“You can either break up the mitochondria with Drp1 or prevent them from fusing by inactivating Mfn,” said Anil Rana, a UCLA project scientist and the study’s lead author. “Both have the same effect: making the mitochondria smaller and extending lifespan.”
Walker said one of the long-term goals of his research is to develop pharmaceuticals that would mimic the effects of Drp1, in order to extend people’s lives and lengthen what he calls people’s “health spans,” meaning the number of healthy years in their lives.
He hopes that a technique similar to the one his team developed for fruit flies could eventually help humans by slowing aging and delaying aging-related diseases. He said the fact that the new approach was effective even after a short time is especially significant because long-term use of nearly any drug can have harmful side effects in humans.
