Mitochondrial 5-demethoxyubiquinone hydroxylase, also known as coenzyme Q7, hydroxylase, is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the COQ7 gene. The clk-1 (clock-1) gene encodes this protein that is necessary for ubiquinone biosynthesis in the worm Caenorhabditis elegans and other eukaryotes. The mouse version of the gene is called mclk-1 and the human, fruit fly and yeast homolog COQ7.
Phenoptosis, the term was proposed by V.P. Skulachev in 1999. It signifies the phenomenon of programmed death of an organism, i.e. that an organism's genes include features that under certain circumstances will cause the organism to rapidly degenerate and die off. Recently this has been referred to as "fast phenoptosis" as aging is being explored as "slow phenoptosis". Phenoptosis is a common feature of living species, whose ramifications for humans is still being explored. The concept of programmed cell death was used before, by Lockshin & Williams in 1964 in relation to insect tissue development, around eight years before "apoptosis" was coined.
Leonard Pershing Guarente is an American biologist best known for his research on life span extension in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, roundworms, and mice. He is a Novartis Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Cynthia Jane Kenyon is an American molecular biologist and biogerontologist known for her genetic dissection of aging in a widely used model organism, the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans. She is the vice president of aging research at Calico Research Labs, and emeritus professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
Isopentenyl pyrophosphate isomerase, also known as Isopentenyl-diphosphate delta isomerase, is an isomerase that catalyzes the conversion of the relatively un-reactive isopentenyl pyrophosphate (IPP) to the more-reactive electrophile dimethylallyl pyrophosphate (DMAPP). This isomerization is a key step in the biosynthesis of isoprenoids through the mevalonate pathway and the MEP pathway.
In enzymology, glucosamine-phosphate N-acetyltransferase (GNA) is an enzyme that catalyzes the transfer of an acetyl group from acetyl-CoA to the primary amine in glucosamide-6-phosphate, generating a free CoA and N-acetyl-D-glucosamine-6-phosphate.
Sterol O-acyltransferase is an intracellular protein located in the endoplasmic reticulum that forms cholesteryl esters from cholesterol.
MutS protein homolog 4 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the MSH4 gene.
Steven G. Clarke, an American biochemist, is a director of the UCLA Molecular Biology Institute, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UCLA biochemistry department. Clarke heads a laboratory at UCLA's department of chemistry and biochemistry. Clarke is famous for his work on molecular damage and discoveries of novel molecular repair mechanisms.
Ubiquinone biosynthesis protein COQ4 homolog, mitochondrial is a protein that in humans is encoded by the COQ4 gene.
Epistasis refers to genetic interactions in which the mutation of one gene masks the phenotypic effects of a mutation at another locus. Systematic analysis of these epistatic interactions can provide insight into the structure and function of genetic pathways. Examining the phenotypes resulting from pairs of mutations helps in understanding how the function of these genes intersects. Genetic interactions are generally classified as either Positive/Alleviating or Negative/Aggravating. Fitness epistasis is positive when a loss of function mutation of two given genes results in exceeding the fitness predicted from individual effects of deleterious mutations, and it is negative when it decreases fitness. Ryszard Korona and Lukas Jasnos showed that the epistatic effect is usually positive in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Usually, even in case of positive interactions double mutant has smaller fitness than single mutants. The positive interactions occur often when both genes lie within the same pathway Conversely, negative interactions are characterized by an even stronger defect than would be expected in the case of two single mutations, and in the most extreme cases the double mutation is lethal. This aggravated phenotype arises when genes in compensatory pathways are both knocked out.
The NAS Award in Molecular Biology is awarded by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences "for recent notable discovery in molecular biology by a young scientist who is a citizen of the United States." It has been awarded annually since its inception in 1962.
DAF-16 is the sole ortholog of the FOXO family of transcription factors in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. It is responsible for activating genes involved in longevity, lipogenesis, heat shock survival and oxidative stress responses. It also protects C.elegans during food deprivation, causing it to transform into a hibernation - like state, known as a Dauer. DAF-16 is notable for being the primary transcription factor required for the profound lifespan extension observed upon mutation of the insulin-like receptor DAF-2. The gene has played a large role in research into longevity and the insulin signalling pathway as it is located in C. elegans, a successful ageing model organism.
Very-long-chain 3-oxoacyl-CoA synthase (EC 2.3.1.199, very-long-chain 3-ketoacyl-CoA synthase, very-long-chain beta-ketoacyl-CoA synthase, condensing enzyme, CUT1 (gene), CER6 (gene), FAE1 (gene), KCS (gene), ELO (gene)) is an enzyme with systematic name malonyl-CoA:very-long-chain acyl-CoA malonyltransferase (decarboxylating and thioester-hydrolysing). This enzyme catalyses the following chemical reaction
Genetics of aging is generally concerned with life extension associated with genetic alterations, rather than with accelerated aging diseases leading to reduction in lifespan.
Alison Woollard is a British biologist. She is a lecturer in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Oxford where she is also a Fellow of Hertford College, Oxford.
Liang Tong is a Chinese American biochemist, structural biologist, and the current chair of the Biological Sciences Department at Columbia University.
Rozalyn (Roz) Anderson is a professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. She studies aging and caloric restriction in primates.
C-5 sterol desaturase is an enzyme that is highly conserved among eukaryotes and catalyzes the dehydrogenation of a C-5(6) bond in a sterol intermediate compound as a step in the biosynthesis of major sterols. The precise structure of the enzyme’s substrate varies by species. For example, the human C-5 sterol desaturase oxidizes lathosterol, while its ortholog ERG3 in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae oxidizes episterol.
Anita Hopper is an American molecular geneticist who is a Professor at the Ohio State University. She studies the mechanisms of distribution of RNA between the nucleus and cytoplasm. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and was elected a Member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2021.
