Aging, chromatin, and food restriction--connecting the dots

Abstract

Model organisms such as yeast have proved exceptionally valuable for revealing new information about the molecular pathways involved in the aging of cells. In her Perspective, Campisi comments on new work showing that caloric restriction increases longevity in yeast by activating the SIR2 gene, which alters the compactness of chromatin and thus regulates gene expression (Lin et al.).