Anti-aging pill could be on the horizon

By Mark Waghorn via SWNS

A fountain of youth pill could be on the horizon after aging was slowed in yeast.

Scientists increased longevity in the single-celled organisms with a biosynthetic "clock."

It rewired the circuit that controls normal deterioration - offering hope of preventing human illnesses.

Senior author Professor Nan Hao, of the University of California, San Diego, said: "Our results establish a connection between gene network architecture and cellular longevity that could lead to rationally-designed gene circuits that slow aging."

Humans have gene regulatory circuits responsible for aging - just like the humble fungi.

The U.S. team used microfluidics and time-lapse microscopy to track the aging processes across yeast's lifespan.

Cells exposed to the oscillator device survived almost twice as long as normal controls.

Prof. Hao said: "Our oscillator cells live longer than any of the longest-lived strains previously identified by unbiased genetic screens.

"Our work represents a proof-of-concept example, demonstrating the successful application of synthetic biology to reprogram the cellular aging process.

"It may lay the foundation for designing synthetic gene circuits to effectively promote longevity in more complex organisms."

Yeast and humans share similar genes, despite diverging from a common ancestor around a billion years ago.

Prof. Hao said: "These gene circuits can operate like our home electric circuits that control devices like appliances and automobiles."

From its normal role of functioning like a toggle switch, the researchers engineered a negative feedback loop to stall aging.

It operates as a clock-like device, called a gene oscillator, that drives the cell to periodically switch between two detrimental 'aged' states, avoiding prolonged commitment to either, and thereby slowing degeneration.

Computer simulations helped them design and build the circuit in the cell.

Prof. Hao said: "This is the first time computationally guided synthetic biology and engineering principles were used to rationally redesign gene circuits and reprogram the aging process to effectively promote longevity."

They previously discovered cells take one of two paths. One leads to healthy aging, while cells that go the other route decline much more quickly as their machinery stutters and churns out broken proteins.

And the scientists found the molecular "switchboard" that determines which fate cells will have.

With this newly found information, the team made a computer model for cellular aging - and found DNA tweaks that could make yeast cells live about twice as long, thus extending the organism's lifespan.

Distinct from numerous chemical and genetic attempts to force cells into artificial states of “youth,” the new research suggests slowing the ticks of the aging clock is possible by actively preventing cells from committing to a pre-destined path of decline and death.

The clock-like gene oscillators described in the journal Science could be a universal system to achieve that.