LINK: Blood from youth keeps you young

polymathwannabe

In experiments performed on mice, blood transfusions from young mice reversed age-related markers in older mice. The protein involved is identical in humans.

http://mic.com/articles/88851/harvard-scientists-may-have-just-unlocked-the-secret-to-staying-young-forever

In experiments performed on mice, blood transfusions from young mice reversed age-related markers in older mice. The protein involved is identical in humans.

http://mic.com/articles/88851/harvard-scientists-may-have-just-unlocked-the-secret-to-staying-young-forever

a) whether this protein can be synthesized

In what way does is that a question? A protein is just a gene that get's transcribed by a ribosome. You can put that gene into least and let the yeast build the protein. The protein might kill the yeast and it might take a while to get the process streamlined but in principle every protein can by produced by yeast or some bacteria.

b) whether it can be efficiently extracted from nonhuman creatures

Who cares? It's not like we extract insulin from animals these days and we probably want the human version of the protein anyway.

c) whether removing it from a creature ages it, or if it can be replaced with no real loss.

Probably depends a lot on your definition of aging. It will take a while till the animal restores the blood levels of the protein and during that time amount of neurogenesis is going to be lower.

More interesting questions would be: d) What the half life of the protein. How often would you have to administer it to keep the levels in the blood constant?

e) Can you deliver the protein orally?

f) Are there processes that get messed up if you simply increase the levels of that protein? Does it increase cancer rates?

g) As the answer to f) is probably yes, is it worth it trade neurogenesis for a bit more cancer? Do you get enough bang for your bucks?

It will take a while till the animal restores the blood levels of the protein and during that time amount of neurogenesis is going to be lower.

But maybe when you're young, having it occasionally filtered would induce a higher set point for production.

Might be true when you're old too.

0Alsadius12y

a) In a way that's economically viable. And there's a reason I said "in descending order" - each is only a concern if the one(s) before it aren't practical. You're right though, my list was not exhaustive.

21[anonymous]12y

http://www.uniprot.org/uniprot/O95390 From the looks of it it is a secreted protein with disulfide bonds that is processed by proteases cleaving it at a particular point and other enzymes adding sugar residues at particular points. You're gonna need to make it in a eukaryote through the secretory pathway and it probably needs a suite of modifying enzymes to cleave and glycosylate it properly, but I don't know if those enzymes are widespread in the eukaryotes or animal-specific. You can always make it in animal cells but that's expensive compared to fermentation tanks. It also must make its way INTO circulation, implying injection, and I haven't been able to see how much plasma was injected and if that indicates occasional infusions or regular injections given how quickly it degrades. EDIT: see downstream reply to ChristianKl for updated information after I followed the citations and looked at the actual papers after work. Looks like the protein is easier to make than I expected (and indeed a lot of eukaryotic proteins CAN be made in bacteria if you have the industrial-scale equipment to do the proper post-processing), but extremely expensive at this time. You basically CANNOT give proteins other than digestive enzymes orally. And I do indeed suspect they'll find some downside to this somewhere, likely in either cancer rates or metabolic issues. I should go after the actual papers later today or something...

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