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Spaceflight may dramatically change the gut within weeks, causing bacteria to break down more protein as food moves more slowly through the intestines. The shift could help explain astronaut constipation and may have wider effects on health, making it an important concern for future missions to Mars.

A compound the body can make after eating pomegranates, walnuts, and some berries improved measures of heart function by up to 80% in animal models of a difficult-to-treat form of heart failure. Urolithin A helped stiff heart tissue relax and reduced scarring and abnormal enlargement. It also improved relaxation in engineered human heart tissue.

Interactions between nervous system and adipose tissue are involved in the regulation of adipocyte browning. However, whether microglial activation participates in the regulation of cold exposure-induced sympathetic innervation and adipocyte browning is unclear. Here, we demonstrate that RNA m6A demethylase ALKBH5 in the microglia nucleus of hypothalamus (PVH) region inhibits cold exposure-induced adipocyte browning in the subcutaneous white adipose tissue (sWAT) of male mice. The single...

As delayed childbearing becomes increasingly common, elucidating the mechanisms of age-related placental senescence is critical for the development of effective therapeutic strategies. Here, we integrate metabolomics, single-cell RNA sequencing, and spatial transcriptomics to uncover conserved features of aged placentas in humans, mice, and pigs, namely, increased macrophage CD38 expression and NAD⁺ deficiency. Through pharmacological and genetic approaches, we demonstrate that macrophage CD38...

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Aging is an inevitable and progressive physiological process marked by a decline in cellular function, accumulation of somatic mutations, decreased ability to maintain homeostasis, and increased tissue and organ dysfunction. These changes contribute to the onset and progression of various age-related diseases. Accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) has been identified as a key mediator of the aging process. Mitochondria, the primary producers of ROS, accumulate defects with aging, leading...

Mineralized blood vessels (MBV) are a form of vascular pathology associated with cerebrovascular aging and neurodegeneration; however, their regional distribution and clinicopathological correlates in Alzheimer disease (AD) remain poorly characterized. We examined 265 decedents with intermediate/high AD neuropathologic change from three Alzheimer's Disease Research Centers (Columbia University, University of California San Diego, and University of California Davis). Hematoxylin and eosin-stained...

Tau, a neuronal microtubule-associated protein (MAP), organizes the axonal cytoskeleton, and regulates intracellular transport. Tau hyperphosphorylation is linked to neurodegeneration in tauopathies, including Alzheimer's disease. Tau binds microtubules cooperatively to form cohesive envelopes, which are thought to control access to the microtubule lattice and regulate the activity of motor proteins and other MAPs. However, how disease-related perturbations affect tau dynamics and its function...

Bcl-2-associated athanogene 3 (BAG3) is a mediator of chaperone-assisted selective autophagy, and in the brain, is most highly expressed in astrocytes. However, its role in astrocytes remains poorly defined. Given the genetic and pathological links of BAG3 to proteostasis and neurodegenerative diseases, we investigated how BAG3 contributes to astrocyte function and Alzheimer's disease (AD). To define its function and relevance, we used single-nucleus RNA sequencing to confirm BAG3 enrichment in...

Antiretroviral therapy (ART) has significantly increased life expectancy of people living with HIV (PLWH). Nonetheless, despite effective virological control, PLWH are faced with accelerated aging, characterized by higher prevalence of age-related comorbidities than the general population. Persistent inflammation and activation of innate immunity seem to drive this immunosenescent phenotype. The cyclic GMP-AMP synthase (cGAS)-stimulator of interferon genes (STING) pathway is increasingly...

Neuronal loss is a hallmark of neurodegenerative diseases. Phosphatidylserine (PS), a key "eat me" signal, is exposed on stressed viable neurons, triggering their premature phagocytosis by activated glia. We investigated whether PS masking could serve as a universal strategy to prevent neuronal loss in two distinct Drosophila models of neurodegeneration: an adult-stage-specific knockdown of skpA and a Huntington's disease model initiated during embryogenesis. Both models exhibit neuronal loss,...

The functional decline of the hematopoietic system during aging affects organismal function and contributes to reduced healthspan. Quantifying hematopoietic aging holds great scientific and clinical relevance. Alterations in chromatin architecture are a well-established hallmark of aging that encode rich and informative signatures of the aging process, yet they remain largely unexplored as quantitative markers. Here, we present an interpretable deep learning approach based on convolutional...

Autophagy is widely proposed to decline with age; however, direct evidence across human cell types remains limited. Moreover, it is unclear whether age-associated changes in autophagy-gene transcription are accompanied by corresponding changes in autophagic activity, and whether autophagic activity relates to physiological function during aging. We performed transcriptomic and functional autophagy analyses across subject-matched human cell types from a healthy aging cohort. Autophagy-related...

Scientists resurrected antimicrobial peptides from mammals that lived millions of years ago and found that some were more potent against drug-resistant bacteria than modern human versions. These evolutionary relics could provide new clues for designing treatments as antibiotic resistance becomes an increasingly serious threat.

Strengthening the body’s natural daily rhythms helped mice recover after stroke by improving the brain’s waste-clearing system and reducing lingering inflammation. The approach worked even when treatment began three days after the stroke, suggesting circadian-based therapies could eventually offer a new way to support long-term recovery.