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Can Nematode Worms Help Humans Understand Aging?

December 21, 2021

Scientists are searching for genes that influence aging in humans, hoping to understand the aging process by studying those genes.
Researchers conducted a study that modified the genes of a simple organism, the nematode worm, to better understand how similar genes affect humans.
Scientists discovered 50 nematode genes that affect aging, 43 of which are also present in humans.

Human genetics is complex. Every human has thousands of genes that can influence aging. These genes can interact in unusual ways, and mapping how genes influence each other has been a problematic research challenge for decades. One of the most common methods for mapping genes relies on model organisms, simple animals that have some similarity to humans that scientists can study. Successfully mapping the genes of simple organisms lets researchers make conclusions about how similar genes affect aging in humans. Scientists at the Babraham Institute’s Epigenetics program recently used a type of nematode worm, C. elegans, as a model organism to study age-related genes in humans. Dr. Casanueva, the group leader in the Epigenetics research program, described their research process as “disrupting [a gene’s] function and seeing what happens.” When Dr. Casanueva’s team modified the genes of C. elegans, they found that disrupting specific genes significantly increased the worm’s lifespan. To find out why the genes increased a worm’s lifespan and how that information could benefit humans, Dr. Casanueva partnered with Marta Sales Pardo, a physicist at the University of Rovira i Virgili. Together, the two scientists worked to identify a massive network of genetic interactions in C. elegans. The researchers created a map of genetic interactions, identifying the genes most associated with a long life, or longevity. They were also able to determine which genes provide input to the longevity genes and which genes were affected by the output of the longevity genes. Through their model of genetic interaction, Marta Sales Pardo and Dr. Casanueva identified 50 unique longevity genes in C. elegans. 43 of those 50 have direct human equivalents. Dr. Casanueva lauded their discovery, remarking that the research team had “shown the predictive power of our computational framework and therefore its potential to accelerate gene discovery in the question of aging in C. elegans and potentially in humans.” As research progresses, humans continue to move towards a better understanding of how we can intervene in our own aging process. Credit: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-12-worm-wide-web-scientists-network.html

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Can Nematode Worms Help Humans Understand Aging?

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