Aging & Longevity

Nickel (Ni), the last essential trace element identified in plants, has long been enigmatic regarding the genetic basis underlying its homeostasis and its agricultural significance. Using genome-wide association analysis, we identified ZmNAET1 as a key transporter controlling Ni allocation to seeds. Mechanistically, ZmNAET1 mediates nicotianamine secretion and enables nicotianamine-dependent phloem loading of Ni in nodes and subsequent Ni translocation into sink organs. Mutants lacking ZmNAET1...

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, with increasing global burden driven by population growth and ageing, persistent harmful exposures, and substantial health inequities. The Lancet Commission on COPD articulated an ambitious vision for disease elimination with prevention, early detection, and intervention. This Review revisits that vision, assesses progress since 2022, and calls for a broader commitment to lifelong lung...

CONCLUSION: IDMAge was associated with mortality and multiple exposomic factors. Although neither approach provided direct validation, both MR and analyses in CHARLS and HRS revealed consistent patterns supporting a potential role for glucose in aging-related decline. Future research should focus on strategies to slow aging and improve resilience in aging populations.

Psychedelic compounds such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) are increasingly studied for their neuroplastic effects and potential relevance to brain ageing and neurodegenerative conditions, including dementia. These processes are characterised by transcriptional changes involving progressive synaptic dysfunction and altered neuron-glia interactions. In computational drug discovery, the transcriptional signature reversion principle proposes that compounds inducing gene expression states...

Biomarkers that correlate with age are essential tools for understanding aging and lifespan variation. DNA methylation (DNAm) changes predictably with age in parts of the genome. In humans, epigenetically "old" individuals relative to their chronological age also have a reduced life expectancy but whether the link between epigenetic age and lifespan is a general feature remains an open question. We explored age-related changes in DNAm in the zebra finch (Taeniopygia castanotis), a key avian...

CONCLUSION: Our findings underscore the relevance of wealth as an important socioeconomic resource for cognitive health beyond income and education, particularly in old age, when income is typically reduced. Overall, the results support modest concurrent associations between personality, SES, and episodic memory levels but provide hardly any evidence for longitudinal effects. More frequent and longer term longitudinal assessments are needed to clarify potential effects on cognitive aging.

We demonstrate that the capacity for acute exercise to induce mitophagy in skeletal muscle is impaired in old male mice and corresponds to a loss of mitoAMPKα. We present evidence of age-dependent, exercise-induced phosphorylation of AMPK at S491, which may predispose mitoAMPKα to degradation by the E3-ubiquitin ligase Trim72. Our findings highlight the need to understand how aging alters spatial responses to energetic stressors, like exercise.

CONCLUSION: Aging is associated with task-specific alterations in neural complexity, hemodynamic complexity, and the cross-modal temporal relationship between EEG and fNIRS signals. These findings suggest that age-related changes in NVC-related dynamics are better characterized as dynamic reorganization rather than a uniform enhancement or impairment, and support the potential of multimodal entropy analysis for characterizing age-related neurovascular coupling change.

INTRODUCTION: Astrocytic senescence is increasingly recognized as a critical contributor to the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease (PD). Ramelteon, a clinically approved MT1/MT2 melatonin receptor agonist, has demonstrated neuroprotective effects in various neurological disorders. However, whether Ramelteon can inhibit astrocytic senescence and the underlying mechanisms remain unknown.

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The frequent coexistence of white matter hyperintensities (WMHs) and β-amyloid (Aβ) pathology in cognitively unimpaired older adults complicates interpretation of vascular and neurodegenerative imaging findings. This narrative review synthesizes topographical, microstructural, and network-level evidence in cognitively unimpaired aging, distinguishing biomarker-characterized samples from supportive mixed or symptomatic cohorts. WMHs have heterogeneous etiologies. Posterior and some...

Aging is an intrinsic biological process; specifically, brain aging leads to cognitive decline, memory loss, and numerous neurodegenerative diseases. Fibroblast growth factor 13 (FGF13) is expressed in the central nervous system (CNS) and plays a critical role in several neuropathological conditions; however, the specific role of FGF13 in brain aging remains unclear. In this study, screening of public gene expression databases revealed that FGF13 is significantly downregulated in the brain...

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Spatial omics technologies provide unprecedented opportunities to investigate how molecular programs are organized within tissues. However, existing analytical frameworks primarily focus on identifying cellular states and characterizing differentially expressed molecular features across these states. The relational spatial organization of molecular features and its dynamics across biological contexts therefore remain largely unexplored. Here we present Gene SPatial Optimal Transport (GeneSPOT),...

Timely removal of defective or superfluous cellular components, including misfolded proteins, aberrant protein complexes and damaged organelles, is essential for maintaining cellular homeostasis and adaptation to stress. This process is controlled by an intricate interplay between two principal degradation systems, the ubiquitin-proteasome system and autophagy, which together mediate the recognition, selection and elimination of diverse substrates. In this Review, we discuss how proteins and...

Diabetes is a major risk factor for developing cognitive impairment and studies have shown that poor glycemic control can increase this risk, but the neural mechanisms are poorly understood. Many studies have linked altered spontaneous cortical activity during the resting-state to Alzheimer's disease and other neurological conditions associated with cognitive impairment. Herein, we examine whether the strength of spontaneous activity during the resting-state is differentially related to glycemic...

Ribophagy plays a critical role in maintaining ribosome quality, yet how ribosomes are marked for autophagic recognition remains poorly understood. Here, we identify the methyltransferase Dot1/DOT1L as a conserved regulator of ribophagy that generates an "eat-me" signal through methylation of Rpl12, thereby regulating ribosome quality. Under nutrient deprivation, Dot1 methylates Rpl12 at K41 and K48 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, enhancing its interaction with Atg11 and initiating ribophagy...

Vascular endothelial cell (VEC) senescence is a key contributor to vascular aging and atherosclerosis. Increasing evidence suggests that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) can encode functional micropeptides involved in cellular regulation. In this study, we investigated whether 17β-estradiol (17β-E2) delays endothelial senescence through an lncRNA-encoded peptide associated with autophagy. RNA sequencing was performed in H(2)O(2)-induced senescent human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs)...

The motion of liquid droplets on solid surfaces is commonly described by contact-line friction, which is generally assumed to increase monotonically with instantaneous velocity. However, such a velocity-only description cannot explain why static droplet friction can exceed dynamic friction or why contact-line friction can become velocity-weakening. Here, we demonstrate that contact-line friction depends jointly on sliding velocity and contact history. Using self-assembled alkylsilane monolayers...

Most vertebrates and insects undergo senescence: as they age, their rate of mortality increases while reproduction declines. We present data from a 34-y study on 3,285 colonies of known age in the western harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex occidentalis, that show the reverse pattern, negative senescence, in which mortality decreases and reproduction increases with age. Theoretical models have identified indeterminate growth and a lack of reproductive cost to growth as the key traits favoring the...