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Study is first to show such governance, reveals protein’s possible anti-aging link A formerly underappreciated member of the sirtuin family of proteins may hold the key to youthfulness and is the first sirtuin shown to specifically govern the activity of genes, scientists report. Researchers from Stanford University report in the Jan. 9 Cell that SIRT6, a sibling of the aging-related protein SIRT1, is an important regulator of gene activity in mice. “This is a big, big discovery,” says Raul Mostoslavsky, a chromatin biologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and Harvard University Medical School in Boston. And one, he...

Enlarge ImageTradeoff. The protein SIRT1 rushes to repair broken DNA in aging mammals like this mouse, but the shifting proteins (in red, inset) let gene expression go awry. Credit: Courtesy of Philipp Oberdoerffer/Harvard Medical School It seems there's just no way to beat Father Time. As we age, our chromosomes fracture, and specialized proteins rush in to reverse the damage. But new research shows that in doing so, these proteins inadvertently switch on genes that can contribute to aging, allowing senescence to march ever onward. The idea that a protein might patch up a rickety, aging chromosome is not...

A new insight into the reason for aging has been gained by scientists trying to understand how resveratrol, a minor ingredient of red wine, improves the health and lifespan of laboratory mice. They believe that the integrity of chromosomes is compromised as people age, and that resveratrol works by activating a protein known as sirtuin that restores the chromosomes to health. The finding, published online Wednesday in the journal Cell, is from a group led by David Sinclair of the Harvard Medical School. It is part of a growing effort by biologists to understand the sirtuins and other powerful agents...

Can you have your cake and eat it? Is there a free lunch after all, red wine included? Researchers at the Harvard Medical School and the National Institute of Aging report that a natural substance found in red wine, known as resveratrol, offsets the bad effects of a high-calorie diet in mice and significantly extends their lifespan. Their report, published electronically today in Nature, implies that very large daily doses of resveratrol could offset the unhealthy, high-calorie diet thought to underlie the rising toll of obesity in the United States and elsewhere, should people respond to the drug as mice...