{"id":40789,"date":"2024-07-11T16:03:34","date_gmt":"2024-07-11T16:03:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/solongevity.com\/longevity-news\/mytho-the-gene-that-helps-us-age-in-good-health\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T08:14:45","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T08:14:45","slug":"mytho-gene-healthy-aging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/solongevity.com\/en\/longevity-news\/mytho-gene-healthy-aging\/","title":{"rendered":"MYTHO, the Gene That Helps Us Age in Good Health"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Whether or not we age in good health is certainly a matter of <strong>lifestyle<\/strong> and good habits, but also of <strong>genetics<\/strong>: a new <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jci.org\/articles\/view\/165814\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">study<\/a>, coordinated by researchers at the University of Padua and published in <em>The Journal of Clinical Investigation<\/em>, seems to confirm it. The authors identified and characterized a previously unknown gene, which encodes the protein called <strong>MYTHO<\/strong> (Macroautophagy and YouTH Optimizer) and which plays an important role in cellular aging and longevity. <\/p>\n<h3>The identification of the MYTHO gene<\/h3>\n<p>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 <strong>highly conserved gene<\/strong>, which usually indicates an important or even decisive role for the survival of the organisms that contain it in their genome. <\/p>\n<p>And it is precisely for this reason that the research group began to study it: \u201cIt 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 <strong>the quality of proteins and organelles<\/strong>,\u201d comments Anais Franco Romero, first author of the work together with Valeria Morbidoni. \u201cAmong 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.\u201d <\/p>\n<h3>Cellular senescence and autophagy<\/h3>\n<p>Through genetic manipulation experiments, the group showed that its inhibition causes <strong>premature senescence<\/strong> (or aging)<strong> of cells<\/strong> and a shortening of life in the worm <em>Caenorhabditis elegans<\/em>, 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.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers also found that the MYTHO gene regulates <strong>autophagy<\/strong>, a process that allows damaged proteins and organelles to be removed, thus helping to keep cells healthy.<\/p>\n<div class=\"container-product-box\"><div class=\"product-box\"> <div class=\"badge\">SOLONGEVITY SHOP<\/div>    <div class=\"product-image\">        <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0765\/8015\/9763\/files\/1_e077f289-91f9-485b-8a72-e53c73de1b95.jpg?v=1688391039\" alt=\"SoLimmune. Nutraceutico di Nuova Generazione\">    <\/div>    <div class=\"product-details\">        <div class=\"product-title\">SoLimmune. Nutraceutico di Nuova Generazione        <\/div>        <div class=\"product-description\">La <strong>perdita dell'autofagia<\/strong>, con il conseguente accumulo di cellule danneggiate e non funzionali, \u00e8 una delle cause (hallmark) dell'<strong>invecchiamento<\/strong>. <strong>SoLImmune<\/strong> \u00e8 il nutraceutico di nuova generazione per il metabolismo e il <strong>riequilibrio del sistema immunitario<\/strong> che aiuta a contrastare l'inflammaging.        <\/div>        <div class=\"price-and-button\">            <div class=\"product-button\">                <a class=\"button\" href=\"https:\/\/shop.solongevity.com\/products\/solimmune?variant=45660425027859&#038;currency=EUR&#038;utm_medium=mytho-gene-healthy-aging&#038;utm_source=corporate&#038;utm_content=sag_organic&#038;utm_campaign=banner\">Scopri di pi\u00f9 <\/a>            <\/div>        <\/div>    <\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<h3>Not just worms<\/h3>\n<p>The study was conducted not only on <em>C. elegans<\/em>, but also on <strong>mice<\/strong> and<strong><em> in vitro<\/em><\/strong>, using mammalian cell lines grown in the laboratory and cells obtained from <strong>muscle tissue biopsies<\/strong> performed on people of different ages.<\/p>\n<p>These experiments showed that the MYTHO gene is particularly <strong>active<\/strong> in <strong>older<\/strong> individuals and mice compared with younger ones. This seems to support the idea that this gene plays an important role in aging. <\/p>\n<p>In addition, similarly to what was observed in <em>C. elegans<\/em>, 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 <strong>\u201creactive oxygen species\u201d<\/strong> (ROS), which cause oxidation and cellular stress.<\/p>\n<p>For the moment, the discovery has no clinical applications, but it is expected to open up a new frontier of research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Its discovery is the result of a study by the University of Padua. Its inhibition causes the onset of premature senescence <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":27978,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[158],"tags":[159],"class_list":["post-40789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en","tag-longevity-science-en"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>MYTHO, the Gene That Helps Us Age in Good Health - SoLongevity<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The gene that encodes the MYTHO protein plays an important role in cellular aging and longevity\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/solongevity.com\/en\/longevity-news\/mytho-gene-healthy-aging\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"MYTHO, the Gene That Helps Us Age in Good Health - 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