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Review
. 2019 Jul 9;10(7):518.
doi: 10.3390/genes10070518.

Longevity: Lesson from Model Organisms

Giusi Taormina  1 , Federica Ferrante  1 , Salvatore Vieni  1 , Nello Grassi  1 , Antonio Russo  1 , Mario G Mirisola  2
Affiliations
Review

Longevity: Lesson from Model Organisms

Giusi Taormina et al. Genes (Basel). .

Abstract

Research on longevity and healthy aging promises to increase our lifespan and decrease the burden of degenerative diseases with important social and economic effects. Many aging theories have been proposed, and important aging pathways have been discovered. Model organisms have had a crucial role in this process because of their short lifespan, cheap maintenance, and manipulation possibilities. Yeasts, worms, fruit flies, or mammalian models such as mice, monkeys, and recently, dogs, have helped shed light on aging processes. Genes and molecular mechanisms that were found to be critical in simple eukaryotic cells and species have been confirmed in humans mainly by the functional analysis of mammalian orthologues. Here, we review conserved aging mechanisms discovered in different model systems that are implicated in human longevity as well and that could be the target of anti-aging interventions in human.

Keywords: aging; model systems; molecular senescence; signal transduction.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, and in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Comparative analysis of the most used model systems in aging research. Genome informations are from NCBI.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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