Houthoofd Koen, Gems David, Johnson Thomas E, Vanfleteren Jacques R
Department of Biology, Ghent University, K.L. Ledeganckstraat 35, BE-9000 Ghent, Belgium.
Interdiscip Top Gerontol. 2007;35:98-114. doi: 10.1159/000096558.
The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans has proved to be an excellent model organism for the study of development and aging. Many aging mutants have been discovered in the past two decades, and much has been discovered about the physiology of long-lived mutants. It therefore seems surprising that dietary restriction (DR) has not been extensively studied using C. elegans. The main reason for this is the lack of an ideal method to subject C. elegans to DR. However, several authors have tried to study the effect of DR on the metabolism and physiology of C. elegans, and epistasis-type interaction studies have been carried out in order to detect genes that might be involved in DR effects. These studies show that DR life extension is not caused by a reduced metabolic rate, consistent with results in other species. Moreover, the well-known insulin/IGF-1 pathway seems not to mediate life-extending effects. One possibility is that target of rapamycin signaling mediates the effects of DR on life span in C. elegans.
线虫秀丽隐杆线虫已被证明是研究发育和衰老的优秀模式生物。在过去二十年中发现了许多衰老突变体，并且对长寿突变体的生理学也有了很多了解。因此，令人惊讶的是，尚未使用秀丽隐杆线虫对饮食限制（DR）进行广泛研究。主要原因是缺乏使秀丽隐杆线虫接受饮食限制的理想方法。然而，几位作者试图研究饮食限制对秀丽隐杆线虫代谢和生理学的影响，并进行了上位性类型的相互作用研究，以检测可能参与饮食限制效应的基因。这些研究表明，饮食限制导致的寿命延长不是由代谢率降低引起的，这与其他物种的结果一致。此外，著名的胰岛素/IGF-1途径似乎不介导寿命延长效应。一种可能性是雷帕霉素信号传导靶点介导了饮食限制对秀丽隐杆线虫寿命的影响。
