Thursday, February 23, 2012

Levels of protein SIRT6 appear to impact lifespan of mice

Researchers in Israel have found that genetically altering male mice to cause them to express more of the protein SIRT6 allowed them to live up to fifteen percent longer.

Haim Cohen and colleagues at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat-Gan, describe in their paper published in Nature, how they veered from following the crowd studying SIRT2 and instead chose to look at SIRT6.

In so doing, they discovered that when the mice under study were caused to express more SIRT6, the older males tended to metabolize sugar at a faster rate than normal, which led, they believe, to protecting them from metabolic disorders and a longer lifespan.

They found that the median lifespan for the transgenic male mice was fourteen and a half percent longer than normal in one line and almost ten percent in another, while there was no statistical difference in the females.

They also measured maximum lifespan and found it grew by nearly sixteen percent in one line of the mice and just over thirteen percent in another. This the group says, shows that mice tend to live longer if they express more SIRT6.

Levels of protein SIRT6 appear to impact lifespan of mice

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