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In cohorts of young and older adults who were comprehensively phenotyped, Janssens and colleagues traverse an important translational gap by providing compelling evidence for the purported link between elevated NAD+ levels and the healthy aging muscle phenotype in humans.
In cultured cells and in mice with accelerated aging, brief bursts of Yamanaka reprogramming factors reverse some molecular and functional deficits of aging without inducing pluripotency or teratomas. Browder et al. show that partial reprogramming regimens rejuvenate some tissues of physiologically aged mice without overt safety concerns.
Vascular senescence has been implicated in atherosclerosis. By characterizing SNPs in the p16-encoding CDKN2A/B locus, a new study in Nature Aging identifies CUX1 as a binding protein of an atherosclerosis-associated functional SNP, which activates CDKN2A expression and senescence in endothelial cells, thus providing a mechanism of transcriptional senescence regulation.
Telomeres, the caps of chromosomes, shorten with age. Using qPCR, Nilhesh Samani, Veryan Codd and colleagues measured leukocyte telomere length in close to half a million individuals from the UK Biobank, confirming several previous associations. This dataset offers many new opportunities to explore associations between leukocyte telomere length and other traits relevant to human aging and health.
As the elderly population continues to grow exponentially, dry eye disease is becoming increasingly common. In this issue, Sasaki and colleagues identified a NAD+-regulated steroidogenic pathway in the eye that supports the normal function of meibomian glands, and show that increasing the availability of NAD+ can alleviate the dry eye phenotype of aged mice.
Countries are advancing retirement age as life expectancy advances. But increases in healthy life expectancy are not keeping pace with total life expectancy, lengthening the portion of life spent with disability and threatening the capacity of individuals to work longer. Now, a study forecasts healthy life expectancy for people in England in 2035.
Many aging-related traits share a common genetic component. How to disentangle it from trait-specific effects has remained largely unexplored. A new study in Nature Aging uses an analysis framework for isolating the shared genetic component in GWAS of aging-related traits, and identifies genomic loci that contribute to longevity.
