{"id":5171,"date":"2015-09-17T18:00:23","date_gmt":"2015-09-17T16:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.embl.de\/?p=5171"},"modified":"2024-04-19T15:38:10","modified_gmt":"2024-04-19T13:38:10","slug":"1509-ageing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/1509-ageing\/","title":{"rendered":"Ages apart"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, and the Salk Institute and the University of California at Berkeley, both in the USA, have now measured and compared just how ageing affects rats\u2019 liver and brain cells. In a study published online today in <em>Cell Systems<\/em>, they were able to tease out general ageing processes from those that are specific to each of these organs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe found that in brain, age-related changes very often have to do with the loss of molecules that help signals to spread among neurons. This could explain why old rats have a reduced ability to form new connections between neurons, as well as other traits observed in the aging brain,\u201d says Martin Beck, who led the work at EMBL. \u201cAnd it is very similar to what has been found in previous studies that have looked at gene expression in humans.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Alessandro Ori, then a postdoc in the Beck group, now group leader at the&nbsp;Leibniz Institute for Age Research \u2013 Fritz Lipmann Institute (FLI), worked with Brandon Toyama at Salk to compare brain and liver cells of rats in the prime of life \u2013 6 months old, roughly equivalent to 18 year-old humans \u2013 to those of old rats \u2013 24 months old. Rather than focus solely on gene expression \u2013 which genes are turned on or off \u2013 as most previous studies had done, the team employed a variety of techniques to assess several steps in the cells\u2019 protein production assembly line. They measured which parts of the genome had been transcribed into RNA, what proteins the cells had produced, what rates proteins were being produced at, and what chemical markers were added to proteins in \u2018post-production\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIntegrating data from different levels was crucial,\u201d says Beck. \u201cWhen you see how the data sets cluster, it reveals what\u2019s actually going on. Often it was only then that we could see that a whole network of reactions is affected.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ageing impacted some networks equally in liver and brain \u2013 notably immune response and inflammation, and stress responses \u2013 implying that these are probably general effects of ageing, felt throughout the body. But other effects were very specific. The livers of old rats showed changes in metabolic processes \u2013 i.e. how cells process molecules \u2013 mostly at the level of regulating how the genome is \u2018read\u2019. In the brain, by contrast, the tell-tale signs of ageing were mostly at the level of protein production, and mainly affected signalling processes that enable neurons to communicate with each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe chose to compare brain and liver because these two organs have very different capacities for self-renewal,\u201d says EMBL alumnus Martin Hetzer, who led the work at the Salk Institute. \u201cThe liver has a very high regeneration rate, so even in an old animal \u2013 or person \u2013 most of the molecules in liver cells will actually be relatively young. In the brain, it\u2019s the opposite: in our previous work we have shown that many sets of molecules in the brain are effectively there for life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis is just the beginning,\u201d says Nicholas Ingolia, who led the work at Berkeley. \u201cOur study provides a rather large resource of proteins, RNAs and post-translational modifications that are affected by age, which we hope others can use to propose new hypotheses which can be tested experimentally.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n<hr class=\"vf-divider\"\/>\n\n\n<p>This research was supported by the&nbsp;EMBL Interdisciplinary Postdoc Programme (EIPOD), the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Marie Sk\u0142odowska-Curie Actions, the Searle Scholars Program, and the Paul F. Glenn Center for Aging Research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Multifaceted approach reveals how brain and liver age, helps explain why ageing brain loses plasticity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":5181,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,17591],"tags":[80,350,42,43,67,1748,51],"embl_taxonomy":[],"class_list":["post-5171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","category-science-technology","tag-alumni","tag-beck","tag-genomics","tag-heidelberg","tag-neurobiology","tag-press-release","tag-systems-biology"],"acf":{"article_intro":"<p>Age may seem like a straightforward measurement: the number of years, months, days since you were born. But for cells in different parts of your body, age can mean very different things.<\/p>\n","related_links":[{"link_description":"This article was first published as an EMBL press release, 17 September 2015","link_url":"http:\/\/s.embl.org\/pr170915"}],"article_sources":[{"source_description":"<p>Ori, A., Toyama, B.H., <em>et al.<\/em> <em>Cell Systems<\/em>, 17 September 2015. DOI:\u00a010.1016\/j.cels.2015.08.012<\/p>\n","source_link_url":"http:\/\/www.cell.com\/cell-systems\/abstract\/S2405-4712(15)00110-6"}],"vf_locked":false,"featured":false,"color":"#007B53","show_featured_image":false,"in_this_article":false,"youtube_url":"","mp4_url":"","video_caption":"","translations":false,"press_contact":"EMBL Generic"},"embl_taxonomy_terms":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Ages apart | EMBL<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Multifaceted approach reveals how brain and liver age, helps explain why ageing brain loses plasticity\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/1509-ageing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ages apart | EMBL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Multifaceted approach reveals how brain and liver age, helps explain why ageing brain loses plasticity\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/1509-ageing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"EMBL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/embl.org\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-09-17T16:00:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-04-19T13:38:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/pr17sep15-ib.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"620\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"425\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sonia Furtado Neves\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Aur_ora\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@embl\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sonia Furtado Neves\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"NewsArticle\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/1509-ageing\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/1509-ageing\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Sonia Furtado Neves\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/d926199a955624b44dda296f396c5e68\"},\"headline\":\"Ages apart\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-09-17T16:00:23+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-04-19T13:38:10+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/1509-ageing\/\"},\"wordCount\":582,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/1509-ageing\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/pr17sep15-ib.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"alumni\",\"beck\",\"genomics\",\"heidelberg\",\"neurobiology\",\"press release\",\"systems biology\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Science\",\"Science &amp; Technology\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/1509-ageing\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/1509-ageing\/\",\"name\":\"Ages apart | EMBL\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/1509-ageing\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/1509-ageing\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/pr17sep15-ib.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-09-17T16:00:23+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-04-19T13:38:10+00:00\",\"description\":\"Multifaceted approach reveals how brain and liver age, helps explain why ageing brain loses plasticity\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/1509-ageing\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/1509-ageing\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/pr17sep15-ib.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/pr17sep15-ib.jpg\",\"width\":620,\"height\":425,\"caption\":\"The scientists combined data from a variety of techniques to better understand how rats \u2013 and humans \u2013 age. 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