Aging & Longevity

Gene transcription by RNA Polymerase II (Pol II) is highly vulnerable to transcription-blocking DNA lesions (TBLs), which, if unresolved, induce transcription stress leading to cellular decline and aging. TBLs are removed by transcription-coupled nucleotide excision repair (TC-NER). TC-NER is initiated when Cockayne syndrome group B protein recognizes lesion-stalled Pol II and promotes TC-NER complex assembly. This complex recruits TFIIH for lesion verification, followed by incision and repair...

As they age, older adults are increasingly susceptible to health decline associated with excessive alcohol consumption, which can accelerate biological aging through cellular stress, senescence-associated responses, and inflammaging. Although sesaminol, a sesame-derived lignan, protects against alcohol-induced colitis in young animals, its effects on alcohol-associated intestinal dysfunction and senescence-related changes in middle-aged animals remain unclear. In this study, middle-aged mice (50...

Circadian biology is recognized for its importance to physiology and metabolism, with implications for healthy aging and disease risk. To test whether altering the number of imposed environmental cycles experienced per unit chronological time affects health biomarkers and lifespan, we compressed and expanded the photic cycle (T-cycle, combined light:dark length) by ~ 10% relative to the 24-h day. Male C57BL/6 J mice (n = 60 per group, 12 weeks old) were randomized to one of three T-cycles: T ~...

Aging is a universal biological process signified by a time-dependent decline in physiological activity, driven by molecular and cellular damage, leading to greater susceptibility to diseases and fatal outcomes. Impaired proteostasis is a key aspect of cellular aging in which the cells become less efficient at folding, repairing, and recycling proteins, consequently inducing accumulation of damaged and aggregation-prone proteins. The onset of muscle loss is driven by a reduction in protein...

Quantifying biological aging and predicting age-related functional decline are increasingly important for reducing the health and socioeconomic burden of population aging. DNA methylation is one of the most extensively studied epigenetic features of aging and underlies epigenetic clocks, promising quantitative biomarkers of biological age. However, the molecular processes driving age-associated DNA methylation changes and the biological signals captured by these clocks remain unclear. A major...

Radiotherapy combined with immunotherapy has emerged as a promising therapeutic strategy across multiple cancer types. However, despite encouraging findings from selected clinical trials, most radioimmunotherapy studies have shown only limited or even negative results, highlighting important biological barriers that limit therapeutic efficacy. Accumulating evidence suggests that radiotherapy induces phenotypic and functional changes in immune cells that resemble key features of age-related...

Bone marrow macrophages (BMMs) coordinate skeletal remodelling, haematopoietic niche function, immune surveillance, and tissue repair. Whether a persistent senescent state in BMMs is a causal driver of skeletal ageing, however, remains unresolved. The central challenge is both definitional and causal: macrophages may be quiescent, terminally differentiated, chronically activated, tolerant, or metabolically dysfunctional, whereas commonly used senescence markers-including p16^(INK4a), p21^(CIP1),...

DNA-protein crosslinks (DPCs) are one of the most complex and deleterious forms of DNA damage. DPCs arise from the stabilization of covalent enzyme-DNA intermediates, such as topoisomerase cleavage complexes, or from exposure to bifunctional crosslinking agents, and they differ in protein identity, DNA context and chemical linkage. Because of their bulky nature, DPCs obstruct essential chromatin processes such as DNA replication and transcription, making their timely removal by dedicated DPC...

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Terrestrial ecosystems are changing rapidly under global nutrient enrichment, yet how canopy nutrients balance shapes the seasonal end of photosynthesis, a critical control on ecosystem carbon cycling, remains unclear. Rising anthropogenic nitrogen inputs are shifting many ecosystems towards relative phosphorus limitation, with uncertain consequences for autumn phenology. Here, we combined airborne imaging spectroscopy with remotely sensed phenology to test whether canopy nutrient ratios predict...

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common sustained cardiac arrhythmia and is promoted by atrial fibrosis, a form of structural remodelling for which effective therapies are lacking. MicroRNA-31-5p (miR-31-5p), an aging-associated, atrial-enriched microRNA, has been linked to AF, but its role in atrial fibrosis is unknown. Here we show that atrial fibroblasts from patients with persistent AF exhibit increased miR-31-5p expression and reduced expression of the calcitonin receptor (CTR, encoded...

Tree shrews are small mammals closely related to primates, which originate in Southeast Asia. In several aspects of their morphology and physiology, tree shrews more closely resemble humans than rodents. For example, the development of their visual system parallels that of humans, making them a desirable model species for pre-clinical research. Despite the use of tree shrews in research for over 50 years, little is known about the basic demography of tree shrews. No detailed lifespan studies are...

CONCLUSIONS: Adding modest dairy product intake to home-based resistance training did not provide additional overall benefits compared to exercise alone. However, exploratory findings suggest that baseline dairy consumption may influence the responsiveness of older adults to combined nutrition and exercise interventions.

CONCLUSION: Higher insulin resistance is a significant modifiable factor for cognitive impairment, specifically in women aged ≥65 years. These exploratory findings suggest potential sex-related differences in the metabolic-cognitive association, underscoring the importance of sex-specific metabolic management starting from midlife to help preserve cognitive health in later life.

The deacetylase SIRT1 is a critical regulator of cellular senescence, and the excessive accumulation of senescent cells can further drive the onset of organismal aging. SIRT1 activity is tightly governed by posttranslational modifications, including ubiquitination. While ubiquitination has been well documented to control SIRT1 protein stability, the precise regulatory pathway underlying SIRT1 activity remains poorly understood. Here, we identify the deubiquitinase USP25 as a central regulator of...

Cryogenic electron microscopy has revealed endpoint structures of ex vivo amyloid filaments, but how amyloids assemble and evolve in living organisms-and how these transitions affect physiology-remains poorly understood. Here, we map the age-dependent structural landscape of Orb2 amyloid, a synaptic translation regulator required for long-term memory, across the adult lifespan of Drosophila melanogaster. By determining multiple Orb2 amyloid structures, we uncover a dynamic, age-linked...

A growing body of evidence implicates the menopausal transition as a neurobiological inflection point in women's brain aging and Alzheimer's disease (AD) vulnerability. Menopause is a midlife neuroendocrine transition characterized by a decline in sex steroid hormones and widespread systemic effects. The brain is not a passive recipient of ovarian hormones but an active endocrine-sensing organ. Menopause, however, does not act in isolation: the ovarian-brain axis is established embryonically,...

Oxidative stress and lipid peroxidation are increasingly recognized as age-related drivers of neurodegeneration, with Parkinson's disease (PD) representing a condition of heightened vulnerability. Among lipid peroxidation products, reactive aldehydes including 4-hydroxy-2-nonenal, malondialdehyde, acrolein, 4-hydroxy-2-hexenal, and crotonaldehyde have emerged not only as biomarkers of oxidative damage, but also as active mediators of neuronal dysfunction. Owing to their electrophilic nature,...

CONCLUSION: This study provides the first multivariate genomic characterization of vascular ageing using Genomic SEM, uncovering loci newly implicated in vascular ageing, convergent putative causal genes, and cellular substrates that link vascular biology to systemic ageing and may inform precision prevention of age-related vascular disorders.

Cross-modal associative memory impairment is one of the earliest cognitive markers of neurodegenerative disorders and may be particularly sensitive to the detection of Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). The Italian Face-Name Association Test (ItFNAT) assesses face-name associative memory through immediate recall (IR), delayed free (DFR), and total recall (DTR), and qualitative indices. This study provides psychometric properties, discriminative capacity, and diagnostic accuracy in older adults. A...