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Review
. 2020 Aug 8;9(8):1862.
doi: 10.3390/cells9081862.

Robustness during Aging-Molecular Biological and Physiological Aspects

Emanuel Barth  1 , Patricia Sieber  2 , Heiko Stark  3 , Stefan Schuster  2
Affiliations
Review

Robustness during Aging-Molecular Biological and Physiological Aspects

Emanuel Barth et al. Cells. .

Abstract

Understanding the process of aging is still an important challenge to enable healthy aging and to prevent age-related diseases. Most studies in age research investigate the decline in organ functionality and gene activity with age. The focus on decline can even be considered a paradigm in that field. However, there are certain aspects that remain surprisingly stable and keep the organism robust. Here, we present and discuss various properties of robust behavior during human and animal aging, including physiological and molecular biological features, such as the hematocrit, body temperature, immunity against infectious diseases and others. We examine, in the context of robustness, the different theories of how aging occurs. We regard the role of aging in the light of evolution.

Keywords: age-related diseases; failure accumulation; healthy aging; immunosenescence; robustness; theories of aging.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Cell lines can protect themselves against damage. With ongoing life cycles, cells divide and progress intro mature cells. That process differs in the speed and number of cells depending on the tissue type. Cells in multicellular organisms can be protected by neighbouring cells (orange) and other individuals (parental care and broader). Damage, however, is not avoidable and causes the death of single cells (crossed out), but the cell line itself survives and stays robust. In theory, all germ cells could live endlessly.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Overview of the presented aging theories. The different theories regarding the main driving factors of aging can be divided into two groups: programmed aging theories, stating that aging results from a genetic program (see Section 2.1, Section 2.2, Section 2.3, Section 2.4 and Section 2.5) and failure accumulation theories, stating that aging results from unavoidable, accumulating damage (see Section 2.6, Section 2.7, Section 2.8, Section 2.9 and Section 2.10). The collection of aging theories presented here is far from complete, but it summarises the current theories.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Number of relative influenza cases reported to the Robert Koch Institute, Germany (SurvStat@RKI 2.0, https://survstat.rki.de, Query date: 2020.02.17) divided by population size (United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2019). World Population Prospects 2019, Online Edition. Rev. 1) and grouped by age and year. Note the high incidence rate in children and youngsters. Moreover, there is a slight increase at the age above 75.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Examples of robustness discussed throughout this review. Some of the observed mechanisms apply to the cellular as well as the organ levels (left), others only to organ level (right).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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