Project description:Given the salient role of early-life adversity (ELA) and the resulting biological embedding in disease risk, there is a critical need to understand the mechanisms operating at multiple levels of analysis in order to promote effective clinical treatments and intervention efforts for survivors. An example for such an effort could be to utilize models of dynamic cellular markers as individual-level factors to account for variation in intervention response and clinical outcomes. Results of this study will lead to new knowledge about specific gene expression pathways in response to stress, and whether the response is moderated by previous exposure to early adversity, shorter telomere length (a marker of cellular aging) and self-report mental-health measures. Thus, the long-term effects of this study will advance our understanding on stress-related transcriptomic changes that play a downstream role in disease susceptibility and accelerated aging, with the goal of targeting specific pathways and genes for potential intervention studies and pharmacological treatments to reverse the effects of exposure to early adversity. For example, considering high failure rates for depression treatments, and in order to tailor individual interventions, identifying objective changes in stress-induced gene expression may help to predict intervention efficacy in clinical and non-clinical settings, as seen, for example, in breast and leukemia cancers. Thus, findings will have a range of impacts for basic science, intervention studies and clinical practice that will influence treatments to match the specific cellular processes operating within an individual.
Project description:Given the salient role of early-life adversity and the resulting biological embedding in disease risk, there is a critical need to understand the mechanisms operating at multiple levels of analysis in order to promote effective clinical treatments and intervention efforts for survivors. An example for such an effort could be to utilize models of dynamic cellular markers as individual-level factors to account for variation in intervention response and clinical outcomes. Results of this study will lead to new knowledge about specific gene expression pathways in response to stress, and whether the response is moderated by previous exposure to early adversity, shorter telomere length (a marker of cellular aging) and self-report mental-health measures. Thus, the long-term effects of this study will advance our understanding on stress-related transcriptomic changes that play a downstream role in disease susceptibility and accelerated aging, with the goal of targeting specific pathways and genes for potential intervention studies and pharmacological treatments to reverse the effects of exposure to early adversity. For example, considering high failure rates for depression treatments, and in order to tailor individual interventions, identifying objective changes in stress-induced gene expression may help to predict intervention efficacy in clinical and non-clinical settings, as seen, for example, in breast and leukemia cancers. Thus, findings will have a range of impacts for basic science, intervention studies and clinical practice that will influence treatments to match the specific cellular processes operating within an individual.
Project description:Spinal motor neurons have been implicated in the loss of motor function that occurs with advancing age. However, the cellular and molecular mechanisms that impair the function of these neurons during aging remain unknown. Here, we show that motor neurons do not die in old female and male mice, rhesus monkeys, and humans. Instead, these neurons selectively shed excitatory synaptic inputs throughout the soma and dendritic arbor during aging. By examining the translatome , we also show that aging alters the molecular composition of motor neurons in both male and female mice. Aging motor neurons present with changes in genes and molecular pathways with roles in glia-mediated synaptic pruning, and inflammation. They also exhibit changes in pathways with roles in axonal regeneration caused by axotomy and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). Thus, we have identified cellular and molecular mechanisms altered in aged motor neurons that could serve as therapeutic targets to preserve motor function during aging.
Project description:Genetic analyses suggest that alterations in gene expression at the molecular and tissue levels can have profound effects on aging for multi-cellular organisms. However, much remains unknown about the normal pattern of genetic changes in different tissues and how these tissues interact during aging. To investigate tissue-specific aging systematically, we measured expression profiles of aging in Drosophila melanogaster in seven tissues representing nervous, muscular, digestive, renal, reproductive, and storage systems. In each tissue, we identified hundreds of age-related genes mostly showing gradual changes of transcript levels with age. Age-relatedgenes showed clear tissue-specific transcriptional patterns; less than 10% of age-related genes in each tissue shared expression patterns with any other tissue; less than 20% of age-related biological processes were shared between tissues. A significant portion of tissue-specific age-related genes are those involved in physiological functions regulated by the corresponding tissue. However, limited overlaps of age-related function groups among tissues particularly those involved in proteasome function suggest some common mechanisms of transcription regulation in aging across tissues. This study defined global, temporal and spatial changes associated withaging at the molecular and tissue levels. Analyses indicated that different tissues might age in different patterns or at different rates. This study addressed comprehensively the relationship of age-related changes among different tissues in one organism, providing a foundation to address tissue-specific regulation in aging. RNA was then amplified by a one-step linear amplification protocol to generate amplified RNA (aRNA). Experiment aRNA refers to amplified RNA from flies of 15, 20, 30, 45 and 60 days old, and reference aRNA refers to amplified RNA from flies of 3 days old, and experiment and reference aRNAs were labeled with fluorescent dye Cy3 and Cy5, respectively. For each tissue, RNA from the corresponding tissue of 3-day old flies was used as the reference RNA and expression profiles at each of the five age-points was measured twice by using independently prepared duplicated samples. Seven types of tissues or organs of the male fly strain w1118 , accessory gland, testis, brain, gut, malpighian tubule, dorsal thoracic muscle and abdominal fat body were hand dissected out of flies at age of 3, 15, 20, 30, 45 and 60 days old. Tissues or organs from four males of the same age were pooled together and used for each RNA sample preparation.