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A newly discovered gene may be more important as it increases longevity.
There is an abundance of advice out there on how to live a good, long life. Researchers are working hard to determine why some people live longer than others, and how we get the most out of our increasingly long lives.
Now researchers from the Center for Healthy Aging, Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Copenhagen have made a breakthrough, published in Nature Communications (Song, 2024). They have discovered that a particular protein known as OSER1 has a great influence on longevity.
We identified this protein that can extend longevity. It is a novel pro-longevity factor, and it is a protein that exists in various animals, such as fruit flies, nematodes, silkworms, and in humans,”
.. says Professor Lene Juel Rasmussen, one of the senior author behind the new study.
Because the protein is present in various animals, the researchers conclude that new results also apply to humans:
If the gene only exists in animal models, it can be hard to translate to human health, which is why we, in the beginning, screened the potential longevity proteins that exist in many organisms, including humans. Because at the end of the day we are interested in identifying human longevity genes for possible interventions and drug discoveries”
.. says Zhiquan Li, who is another author behind the new study.
Paves the way for new treatment
The researchers discovered OSER1 when they studied a larger group of proteins regulated by the major transcription factor FOXO, known as a longevity regulatory hub.
“We found 10 genes that, when — we manipulated their expression — longevity changed. We decided to focus on one of these genes that affected longevity most, called the OSER1 gene,” says Zhiquan Li.
The researchers also hope that the identification and characterization of OSER1 will provide new drug targets for age-related diseases such as metabolic disease (e.g. type 2 diabetes), cardiovascular and neuro-degenerative diseases (e.g. dementia and Parkinson’s Disease).
