{"id":125623,"date":"2021-07-29T10:22:18","date_gmt":"2021-07-29T17:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/07\/small-proteins-discovered-to-be-regulators-of-the-aging-process"},"modified":"2021-07-29T10:22:18","modified_gmt":"2021-07-29T17:22:18","slug":"small-proteins-discovered-to-be-regulators-of-the-aging-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/07\/small-proteins-discovered-to-be-regulators-of-the-aging-process","title":{"rendered":"Small proteins discovered to be regulators of the aging process"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/small-proteins-discovered-to-be-regulators-of-the-aging-process.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Scientists have discovered that the protein ubiquitin plays an important role in the regulation of the aging process. Ubiquitin was previously known to control processes such as signal transduction and metabolism. Prof. Dr. David Vilchez and his colleagues at the CECAD Cluster of Excellence for Aging Research at the University of Cologne performed a comprehensive quantitative analysis of ubiquitin signatures during aging in the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans, a nematode worm broadly used for aging research. This method\u2014called ubiquitin proteomics\u2014measures all changes in ubiquitination of proteins in the cell.<\/p>\n<p>The resulting data provide site-specific information and define quantitative changes in <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/ubiquitin\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">ubiquitin<\/a> changes across all proteins in a cell during aging. A comparison with the total <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/protein\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">protein<\/a> content of a cell (proteome) showed which changes have functional consequences in protein turnover and actual protein content during aging. The scientists thus discovered new regulators of lifespan and provide a comprehensive dataset that helps to understand aging and <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/longevity\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">longevity<\/a>. The article, \u201cRewiring of the ubiquitinated proteome determines aging in C. elegans,\u201d has now been published in Nature.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur study of ubiquitin changes led us to a number of exciting conclusions with important insights for understanding the aging process,\u201d said Dr. Seda Koyuncu, lead author of the study. \u201cWe discovered that aging leads to changes in the ubiquitination of thousands of proteins in the cell, whereas longevity measures such as reduced food intake and reduced insulin signaling prevent these changes.\u201d Specifically, the researchers found that aging causes a general loss of ubiquitination. This is caused by the enzymes that remove ubiquitin from proteins become more active during aging. Normally, ubiquitinated proteins are recognized and destroyed by the proteasome, the cell\u2019s garbage truck. The scientists showed that the longevity of organisms is determined by age-related changes in the degradation of structural and regulatory proteins by the proteasome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scientists have discovered that the protein ubiquitin plays an important role in the regulation of the aging process. Ubiquitin was previously known to control processes such as signal transduction and metabolism. Prof. Dr. David Vilchez and his colleagues at the CECAD Cluster of Excellence for Aging Research at the University of Cologne performed a comprehensive [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1506,269],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food","category-life-extension"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125623\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}