Whether or not we age in good health is certainly a matter of lifestyle and good habits, but also of genetics: a new study, coordinated by researchers at the University of Padua and published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation, seems to confirm it. The authors identified and characterized a previously unknown gene, which encodes the protein called MYTHO (Macroautophagy and YouTH Optimizer) and which plays an important role in cellular aging and longevity.
The identification of the MYTHO gene
This is a gene that has a similar sequence even in species that are very distant from one another from an evolutionary point of view. In technical terms, it is said to be a highly conserved gene, which usually indicates an important or even decisive role for the survival of the organisms that contain it in their genome.
And it is precisely for this reason that the research group began to study it: “It all started with a computational search to identify, in the human genome, potential still-unknown genes that could be relevant to the mechanisms that control the quality of proteins and organelles,” comments Anais Franco Romero, first author of the work together with Valeria Morbidoni. “Among the various candidates, the team focused on a gene that stood out for being extremely conserved across different animal species, from humans to worms, called MYTHO.”
Cellular senescence and autophagy
Through genetic manipulation experiments, the group showed that its inhibition causes premature senescence (or aging) of cells and a shortening of life in the worm Caenorhabditis elegans, widely used as an animal model in genetics laboratories precisely to study the function of certain genes, especially those that are also conserved in humans.
The researchers also found that the MYTHO gene regulates autophagy, a process that allows damaged proteins and organelles to be removed, thus helping to keep cells healthy.
Not just worms
The study was conducted not only on C. elegans, but also on mice and in vitro, using mammalian cell lines grown in the laboratory and cells obtained from muscle tissue biopsies performed on people of different ages.
These experiments showed that the MYTHO gene is particularly active in older individuals and mice compared with younger ones. This seems to support the idea that this gene plays an important role in aging.
In addition, similarly to what was observed in C. elegans, in cells grown in the laboratory inhibition of the MYTHO gene also caused effects characteristic of cellular aging, such as reduced proliferation and the production of so-called “reactive oxygen species” (ROS), which cause oxidation and cellular stress.
For the moment, the discovery has no clinical applications, but it is expected to open up a new frontier of research.
