The journal club, hosted by Dr. Oliver Medvedik for July, takes a look the latest SIRT6 evolutionary biologist paper by Vera Gorbunova.
The journal club, hosted by Dr. Oliver Medvedik for July, looks at a new evolutionary biology paper on SIRT6 by Dr. Vera Gorbunova & collaborators that shows a link between increased SIRT6 function & longevity.
Abstract DNA repair is hypothesized as a longevity factor, but evidence for this hypothesis comes largely from the accelerated aging of DNA repair mutations. Using a panel consisting of 18 rodents with varying lifespans, the authors show that a more robust DNA double-strand repair (DSB), but not nucleotide excission repair (NER), is associated with longevity. Unlike DSBs, the evolution of NER is mainly influenced by sunlight exposure. Further, we show that the ability of the SIRT6 to promote DSB repairs accounts for a large part of the difference in DSB Repair efficacy among short-lived and long-lived organisms. We dissected molecular differences in a weak (mouse), and a stronger (beaver), SIRT6 proteins and identified five residues which are responsible for the differential activity. Our findings show that DSB Repair and SIRT6 were optimized during the evolution to longevity. This provides new targets for antiaging interventions.
Literature
Tian, X., Firsanov, D., Zhang, Z., Cheng, Y., Luo, L., Tombline, G., … & Goldfarb, A. (2019). (2019). Cell, 177, 622-638.
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