Aging: rapamycin can delay epigenetic aging

June 10, 2019 / BIOON / - stopping or even delaying the aging process is an attractive concept, which has attracted human imagination for thousands of years But even if it's possible to rejuvenate our bodies or slow down the aging process, how do we measure that? As we all know, age is obviously an inappropriate measure, because it is entirely based on the passage of time, regardless of the biological changes in our bodies In 2013, Steve Horvath of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) described the astonishing mathematical precision with which chemical modifications in DNA, known as methylation, change with age Using these methylation maps, he derived a highly accurate age prediction algorithm, which is essentially a time independent measurement based on biology Photo source: aging 2018, Horvath, in collaboration with Ken Raj of the British public health department, developed an improved algorithm called skin and blood clock, which is suitable for both in vitro and in vivo cultured cells Using this epigenetic clock, Raj and Horvath have now demonstrated that rapamycin can delay aging, not only in many animal species, but also in human cells It is true that this is a process that occurs in human cells rather than in the body, but this finding is consistent with an independent observation that the mlst8 gene mutation encoding part of rapamycin targets is related to the accelerated rate of epigenetic aging in humans The consistency between the observation of cultured cells on the experimental platform and the results of genome-wide association studies with human tissues highlights the fidelity of the system, which has been derived and verified in humans to test the effects of compounds on human aging Equally important, rapamycin has been shown to prevent senescence in inhibited cells - a process known as Gero conversion, which Raj and Horvath have previously shown is different from epigenetic senescence Raj's team concluded: "rapamycin's life prolonging properties may be the result of its multiple effects, including but not necessarily limited to inhibition of cell aging and epigenetic aging, and may enhance cell proliferation potential "Therefore, rapamycin seems to have an extraordinary ability to inhibit aging in two independent ways While buy one get two is common in retail, it is extremely rare in biology As in retail, rapamycin can be a hassle to provide, and it should be noted that rapamycin's effect has not been widely tested on other cell types Despite this warning, this exciting discovery, along with the tools and methods available as described by Raj and Horvath, will undoubtedly encourage the search for better compounds that may contribute to healthy human aging Reference materials: Steve Horvath et al, rapamycin returns epic aging of kernatinocytes independently of its effects on repetitive sensitivity, promotion and differentiation, aging (2019) Doi: 10.18632/aging.101976