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Developmental drift as a mechanism for aging: lessons from nematodes

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Abstract

Aging is a universal biological process that afflicts every creature on this planet. To date, we have a very poor understanding of what actually causes this degeneration. A commonly held view is that aging is the result of damage accumulation over a lifetime. However, research has shown that aging is not only the result of wear and tear in the organism, but also of genetic programs involved in organismal development that go awry as selective pressure is released. This review focuses on Wnt signalling pathways and discusses how these genetic programs orchestrate changes in the organism that could cause aging.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by MacGillavry fellowship at the University of Amsterdam. We thank all members of Stanley Brul’s lab for discussions and comments on the manuscript. In part, this work was reported at the 8th European Congress of Biogenontology (March, 2013).

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  1. Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences, University of Amsterdam, Science Park 904, 1098 XH, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Marco Lezzerini, Reuben L. Smith & Yelena Budovskaya

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  1. Marco Lezzerini
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  2. Reuben L. Smith
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  3. Yelena Budovskaya
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Correspondence to Yelena Budovskaya.

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Lezzerini, M., Smith, R.L. & Budovskaya, Y. Developmental drift as a mechanism for aging: lessons from nematodes. Biogerontology 14, 693–701 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10522-013-9462-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10522-013-9462-3

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