Johnson T E
Institute for Behavioral Genetics, University of Colorado, Boulder 80309.
Aging (Milano). 1993 Aug;5(4):299-307. doi: 10.1007/BF03324179.
A central theme underlies this review: "Genetics offers an important tool for identifying key molecular events that are involved in specifying biological functions." This approach has been used repeatedly to understand such diverse biological phenomena as oncogenesis, development, and the cell cycle, but has only recently been applied to the analysis of organismic aging and senescence. The power of the genetic approach lies in the ability to integrate phenomena that are displayed at multiple observational levels (i.e., from the molecular to the whole organism), and the power to reveal causal factors that are not dependent upon the prejudice of the investigator. I discuss several areas where genetics has been fruitfully applied to the study of the aging processes: human genes identified by "segmental progeroid" mutations; neurological diseases of the elderly; the limited proliferative life span of human somatic cells in tissue culture; studies on the life span of the mouse; and genetic analysis of life span in shorter-lived metazoans (Drosophila melanogaster and Caenorhabditis elegans), and the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.
“遗传学提供了一个重要工具，用于识别参与确定生物学功能的关键分子事件。” 这种方法已被反复用于理解诸如肿瘤发生、发育和细胞周期等多种生物学现象，但直到最近才应用于生物体衰老和老化的分析。遗传学方法的强大之处在于能够整合在多个观察层面（即从分子层面到整个生物体层面）所呈现的现象，以及揭示不依赖于研究者偏见的因果因素的能力。我将讨论遗传学已卓有成效地应用于衰老过程研究的几个领域：通过 “节段性早老样” 突变鉴定的人类基因；老年人的神经疾病；组织培养中人类体细胞有限的增殖寿命；小鼠寿命的研究；以及对寿命较短的后生动物（黑腹果蝇和秀丽隐杆线虫）和酿酒酵母寿命的遗传分析。
