Gurkar Aditi U, Niedernhofer Laura J
Department of Metabolism and Aging, Scripps Florida, 130 Scripps Way #3B3, Jupiter, FL 33458, USA.
Department of Metabolism and Aging, Scripps Florida, 130 Scripps Way #3B3, Jupiter, FL 33458, USA.
Exp Gerontol. 2015 Aug;68:43-50. doi: 10.1016/j.exger.2015.01.045. Epub 2015 Jan 21.
Aging is the primary risk factor for numerous chronic, debilitating diseases. These diseases impact quality of life of the elderly and consume a large portion of health care costs. The cost of age-related diseases will only increase as the world's population continues to live longer. Thus it would be advantageous to consider aging itself as a therapeutic target, potentially stemming multiple age-related diseases simultaneously. While logical, this is extremely challenging as the molecular mechanisms that drive aging are still unknown. Furthermore, clinical trials to treat aging are impractical. Even in preclinical models, testing interventions to extend healthspan in old age are lengthy and therefore costly. One approach to expedite aging studies is to take advantage of mouse strains that are engineered to age rapidly. These strains are genetically and phenotypically quite diverse. This review aims to offer a comparison of several of these strains to highlight their relative strengths and weaknesses as models of mammalian and more specifically human aging. Additionally, careful identification of commonalities among the strains may lead to the identification of fundamental pathways of aging.
衰老乃是众多慢性、使人衰弱疾病的主要风险因素。这些疾病影响老年人的生活质量，并耗费了大部分医疗保健费用。随着世界人口寿命的持续延长，与年龄相关疾病的成本只会增加。因此，将衰老本身视为一个治疗靶点，有可能同时遏制多种与年龄相关的疾病，这将是有益的。虽然这合乎逻辑，但极具挑战性，因为驱动衰老的分子机制仍然未知。此外，针对衰老进行治疗的临床试验并不切实可行。即便在临床前模型中，测试延长老年健康寿命的干预措施也耗时漫长，因而成本高昂。加速衰老研究的一种方法是利用经过基因工程改造而快速衰老的小鼠品系。这些品系在基因和表型上差异很大。本综述旨在对其中几种品系进行比较，以突出它们作为哺乳动物尤其是人类衰老模型的相对优势和劣势。此外，仔细识别品系之间的共性可能会促成对衰老基本途径的识别。
