Original Article @ David Ogdens Blog
Nopalea Cactus Juice
Inflammation and Aging
A paper published online in Molecular Cell has reported the results of a study that blocked a certain protein from being expressed in mice. The protein AUF1 is critical for binding and degrading mRNA specific for pro-inflammatory molecules. In this study, the mice lack AUF1, and (not surprisingly) they have a dampened inflammatory response. A bit surprising is the news that, even in a germ-free environment, the mice age very quickly. After further study, authors concluded that the anti-inflammatory AUF1 not only binds and degrades mRNA for pro-inflammatory molecules, but it also acts as a transcription factor responsible for triggering the production of telomerase – a very strange double-role for this type of molecule. Without telomerase, the chromosomes of the mice become degraded very quickly and the mice age prematurely.
Robert Schneider of New York University, who led the study. "This is certainly not something anybody would have ever anticipated."
Schneider and his team had been analysing mice that lacked a protein called AUF1 and they'd shown that it was critical for binding to and degrading mRNA transcripts encoding inflammatory proteins. But besides having a dampened inflammatory response, mice lacking AUF1 displayed some unusual characteristics.
"We noticed that they aged very rapidly," said Schneider. "Every cell in this animal's body was undergoing senescence". Furthermore, "with each subsequent generation the ability to produce mice decreased quite dramatically", he said. These attributes, which appeared to have nothing to do with inflammation, began to ring some bells, said Schneider. They reminded him of reports about mice that lack telomerase—an enzyme that maintains the repetitive DNA sequences (telomeres) that cap and protect the ends of chromosomes. Without telomerase, telomeres become shorter with each cell cycle, which eventually damages the chromosomes and triggers cellular senescence.
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