Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

mTOR production affects longevity in mice:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324324404579042903047362482.html

By reducing the activity of one type of gene, scientists said they increased the average life span of mice by about 20%, a feat that in human terms is akin to extending life by about 15 years… Moreover, the researchers at the National Institutes of Health found that memory, cognition and some other important traits were better preserved in the mice as they aged, compared with a control group of mice…

The findings, published Thursday in the journal Cell Reports, strengthen the case that the gene, called mTOR, is a major regulator of the aging process. The mice were bred to put out just 25% of the normal levels of mTOR protein, indicating that suppressing the activity of the gene "clearly makes mice live longer," said Toren Finkel, head of the laboratory of molecular biology in NIH's National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and senior author of the new study.

The mice in the study had softer bones, developed more infections—probably from a depressed immune system—and may have had a higher risk of cataracts than normal mice, the researchers found. But they were also significantly less likely to develop cancer…

…"It's early days to suggest that rapamycin is something that people would want to take" to increase longevity," said David Sabatini, professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Mass., who wasn't involved in Thursday's study. "But [research] is clearly hinting at a pathway that matters."

In the study, Dr. Finkel found that the median life span for the mTOR-deficient mice was 28 months for males and 31.5 months for females, compared with the span for normal mice of 22.9 months for males and 26.5 months for females.