Aging may not be caused by the accumulation of cellular damage, as a linkurl:prominent theory;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54281/ suggests. Instead, the process may result from the deterioration of crucial developmental pathways, according to a study published tomorrow in Cell. "What we found is, I think, a different way to think about aging," linkurl:Stuart Kim;http://cmgm.stanford.edu/~kimlab/ of Stanford University, main author of the study, told The Scientist. Kim and his colleagues used microarray gene chips to compare the genes being expressed in old and young C. elegans worms. They found 1254 genes that had different expression levels between the two groups. Almost all of these genes were developmental genes, necessary for proper intestinal and skin development in young worms. Kim's team also found a set of three transcription factors that had different expression levels in old worms. Two of the transcription factors -- called ELT-5 and ELT-6 -- were overexpressed in old worms....
The ScientistC. elegans
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