Aging & Longevity

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...

No abstract

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...

Cells exhibit innate reparative communication, enabling the exchange of bioactive molecules and, in some cases, entire organelles. Harnessing this endogenous process of intercellular organelle transfer represents an emerging therapeutic paradigm for restoring cellular function in diseases driven by organelle dysfunction. Mitochondrial transfer has gained prominence for its ability to restore bioenergetic capacity, mitigate oxidative stress, and rescue metabolic function in cells with impaired...

CONCLUSION: Cognitive advantages observed in women in midlife did not translate into lower dementia risk. Further research incorporating biological, psychosocial and life-course factors, as well as the timing and heterogeneity of underlying disease processes, is needed to better understand sex differences in cognitive ageing and dementia.

The microstructure of cells within the human cerebral cortex varies across the cortical ribbon, where changes in cytoarchitecture and myeloarchitecture are thought to endow each region of the cortex with its unique function. While fine-scale relative to a cell, these changes at the population level impact architectural properties of the cortex measurable in vivo by noninvasive MRI, such as the thickness and myelin content of the cortex. This raises the question of whether or not we can use these...

Aberrant activation of the STING signaling pathway is involved with aging-related inflammation, yet no STING-targeting therapeutics are clinically approved. Here, we identify Omaveloxolone, an FDA-approved drug for Friedreich's ataxia, as a potent STING degrader (DC(50) = 118 nM, D(max) = 98.6%) via high-throughput screening. Omaveloxolone binds non-covalently to the base of the STING ligand-binding domain (LBD) with high affinity (K(D) = 21.4 nM) and exhibits crowbar-like behavior consistent...

During mitotic growth, Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells age by dividing asymmetrically, producing young daughter cells while retaining age-associated damage in the mother cell, which will eventually become senescent. Gametogenesis naturally and fully resets precursor cell lifespan, even for replicatively aged cells. However, the mechanisms responsible for gametogenic rejuvenation have remained mysterious. This is partly due to the existing methods to quantify lifespan resetting in this context,...

No abstract

In mammals, oocytes initiate meiosis during fetal development and then enter a prolonged meiotic arrest. During this female-specific long-term arrest, chromosome cohesion mediated by nonrenewable REC8 cohesin gradually deteriorates, predisposing oocytes to age-associated chromosome segregation errors when meiosis resumes for maturation in adulthood. Female-specific factors that counteract this deterioration remain unknown. Here we identify OMC1 as an oocyte-specific chromosomal protein required...