Old age of the brain and old age of the liver

In recent years, molecular biology has been able to so much gitics that even in tempered consumers of scientific knowledge causes amazement. If you want, for example, read the publication in fresh Cell Systems and you do not expect any trick. The name translates dryly: "Integrated analysis of the transcriptoma and proteoma reveals the organ-specific degradation of the proteoma in old rats." You are waiting for a strong working article on a fashionable topic of aging. Good ( Cell nevertheless), but on the local problem of old-age rat and destruction of some individual proteins in the cells of these eternal martyrs of laboratory work. Moreover, there are only nine authors. Against the backdrop of hundreds and thousands of signatures under other work, it is not impressive. What are nine people from the USA and Germany on fifteen pages of such a global pages? You start reading and - bam - you understand what else they can. They worked hard with a grand scale.

So. Work on cell aging at a molecular level. Two groups of rats: young six -month and elderly two -year -olds, but also not yet ready to die (and had to). And we look at what the cells of the brain and liver cells consist of. First of all, we are interested in the composition of proteins and molecules of matrix RNA - those molecules on which instructions for protein synthesis are recorded. This will be the study of a proteo (proteins) and transcriptoma (RNA). Then we compare how the old brain differs from the young, and the old liver from the old brain.

If there is a hypothetical general mechanism of aging of the cell, then by the difference in these organs it can be calculated.

The pathos is that scientists have really studied all (!) Types of proteins and RNA in cells, as well as all their modifications. Well, perhaps some minor components missed. All the same, these are thousands of options. But even this is not the main thing: after the genomes began to be deciphered in packs, this is no longer surprised. However, scientists did not stop there. They consistently and methodically walked along the entire chain of protein synthesis: here RNA, yeah, found 447 differences in the cells of the old rats from young, so much in the liver, so much in the brain; Here is an immature RNA, found 9 differences in the splashing; Here are signal proteins, here are transport, here are membrane complexes, but here we have mitochondrial, and here - if you please - epigenetics ... and so on. That is, they walked literally throughout the molecular device of the cell, methodically and even boring listing the found age differences. Then it was modestly reported that hundreds of unknown markers of aging had previously found and thus brought the molecular basis under the previously known physiological signs of aging. Under unknown, presumably, too.

This, of course, is not all. The program of future experiments is given and advanced from half a dozen witty hypotheses ...

In general, it is better to read it yourself, if you are not afraid. I can’t imagine that such work was done about 15 years ago. And 10 years ago - with difficulty. New methods, new algorithms, access to databases. The damn mixture of cellular biology with bioinformatics.

As a result, they received the first, sufficiently complete description of the old cell at the molecular level. More precisely, the differences between the cells of the old creature and the young (I do not say “rats”, since scientists also compared with the famous human markers of age -related degradation, they found a lot similar). The degradation of the proteoma, that is, critical changes in the quantities and properties of proteins, are, of course, not the entire aging mechanism, but without its detailed description, little can be understood. But now you can take a cage and report signs by set of signs whether it is old or young.

The sight of this work is to find big biological clock, the dream of any physiologist.

And the most important thing: objects, that is, the brain and liver are very smartly selected. They live and age in the most different ways. Most of the neurons of the brain remain with the rat for life. They are not propagated and are not replaced in an adult animal, as well as in humans, however. The liver cells, on the contrary, are replaced every few months with new ones. But if there is a hypothetical general aging mechanism, then by the difference in these organs it can be calculated. As well as understand what molecular changes are a consequence of age, and which is its cause. That is, the sight of this work is to find big biological clock, the dream of any physiologist.

All our ears were buzzed with these hours. For example, I first read the hypothesis about their device as a teenager, in the seventies of the last century. And already in order was disappointed in the fact that they would be discovered during my life. Because for several years now I have been heard about the suprachiamatic core of the hypothalamus where they should be placed, and about free radicals, and about the destruction of mitochondria, but I have not yet observed breakthroughs. The work that I talked about is also not a breakthrough, this is just a well -organized set of data. That's when the section “Molecular Fundamentals of the Satisfaction of the body” appear in the biology textbook, then the revolution can be considered accomplished and engage in the search for medicine from old age. Nevertheless, the power of modern biology is impressive. With each such article it can be seen that science is biting into increasingly basic levels of the cellular device. Maybe he will gnaw to the foundation of old age and death.