Harel Itamar
Department of Genetics, Silberman Institute, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Givat Ram, Jerusalem 9190401, Israel
Genes Dev. 2025 Aug 1;39(15-16):930-932. doi: 10.1101/gad.353113.125.
Across species, the "pace of life"-encompassing development, reproduction, and senescence-varies widely, yet the molecular mechanisms that regulate these interspecies trajectories of aging remain elusive. Even among vertebrates, a 1000-fold difference in life span is observed between species, ranging from several months in the turquoise killifish to half a millennium in the Greenland shark. As a relatively "young" area of investigation, aging research lacks the unifying conceptual frameworks that anchor more established disciplines, such as neuroscience. Therefore, current theories, which in some cases provide contradicting predictions, rely heavily on experimental data to mature. These contradictions not only define key outstanding questions but also illuminate fertile ground for transformative research.
在不同物种中，涵盖发育、繁殖和衰老的“生活节奏”差异很大，但调节这些物种间衰老轨迹的分子机制仍然难以捉摸。即使在脊椎动物中，不同物种的寿命也相差1000倍，从绿松石鳉鱼的几个月到格陵兰鲨鱼的半个千年不等。作为一个相对“年轻”的研究领域，衰老研究缺乏像神经科学等更成熟学科所具有的统一概念框架。因此，目前的理论在某些情况下提供了相互矛盾的预测，严重依赖实验数据来完善。这些矛盾不仅界定了关键的悬而未决的问题，也为变革性研究指明了富有成果的方向。
