Metabolic Youth in Middle Age: Predicting Aging in Caenorhabditis elegans Using Metabolomics
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Davies, SK
Bundy, JG
Leroi, AM
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Many mutations and allelic variants are known that influence the rate at which animals age. But when in life do such variants diverge from normal patterns of ageing? And is this divergence visible in their physiologies? To investigate these questions we have used 1H NMR spectroscopy to study how the metabolome of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans changes as it grows older. We identify a series of metabolic changes that, collectively, predict the age of wild-type worms. We then show that long-lived mutant daf-2(m41) worms are metabolically youthful compared to wild-type worms - but that this relative youth only appears in middle age. Finally, we show that metabolic age predicts the timing and magnitude of differences in age-specific mortality between these strains. Thus the future mortality of these two genotypes can be predicted long before most of the worms die.
Date Issued
2015-09-18
Date Acceptance
2015-09-18
Citation
Journal of Proteome Research, 2015, 14 (11), pp.4603-4609
ISSN
1535-3907
Publisher
American Chemical Society
Start Page
4603
End Page
4609
Journal / Book Title
Journal of Proteome Research
Volume
14
Issue
11
Copyright Statement
© 2015 American Chemical Society. ACS AuthorChoice - This is an open access article published under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the author and source are cited.
License URL
Publication Status
Published