Zou S, Meadows S, Sharp L, Jan L Y, Jan Y N
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Departments of Physiology and Biochemistry, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143-0725, USA.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2000 Dec 5;97(25):13726-31. doi: 10.1073/pnas.260496697.
Aging is a universal but poorly understood biological process. Free radicals accumulate with age and have been proposed to be a major cause of aging. We measured genome-wide changes in transcript levels as a function of age in Drosophila melanogaster and compared these changes with those caused by paraquat, a free-radical generator. A number of genes exhibited changes in transcript levels with both age and paraquat treatment. We also found genes whose transcript levels changed with age but not with paraquat treatment. This study suggests that free radicals play an important role in regulating transcript levels in aging but that they are not the only factors. This genome-wide survey also identifies candidates for molecular markers of aging.
衰老 是一个普遍存在但却知之甚少的生物学过程。自由基会随着年龄的增长而积累，并且被认为是衰老的一个主要原因。我们测定了黑腹果蝇转录水平在全基因组范围内随年龄的变化，并将这些变化与由百草枯（一种自由基生成剂）所引起的变化进行了比较。许多基因的转录水平在衰老和百草枯处理时均发生了变化。我们还发现了一些基因，其转录水平随衰老而变化，但不受百草枯处理的影响。这项研究表明，自由基在衰老过程中调节转录水平方面发挥着重要作用，但它们并非唯一的因素。这项全基因组调查还确定了衰老分子标志物的候选基因。
