Will nitroglycerin slow down aging?
Nitric oxide prolongs life, biologists from Russia and the USA found out
The last quarter of a century, according to a number of experts, was the "era" of nitrogen oxide for biochemistry. During this time, it became clear that NO is involved, in particular, in the expansion of blood vessels, the work of the immune and nervous systems. In 1992, the journal Science named nitric oxide the "molecule of the year", and then three of its researchers received the Nobel Prize. Nitric oxide is associated with the action of drugs such as nitroglycerin and viagra.
Now it has become clear that this substance is also associated with the prolongation of life.
How the discovery was madeThe authors of the discovery are a group of scientists, which included employees of the Medical School of New York University (USA) and specialists of the Moscow Center for State Genetics, working within the framework of the Geronlab project on aging, supported by the Russian Dynasty Foundation.
The object of biologists' attention was a small round worm Caenorhabditis elegans – one of the most popular organisms used in the study of aging. Scientists have noticed that C.elegans, unlike many other animals and humans, does not "produce" NO itself, but at the same time lives relatively normally. The "supplier" of nitric oxide for him were the cells of the Bacillus subtilis hay bacillus, a bacterium that is part of the worm's food "diet" and secretes NO.
The researchers fed one group of C.elegans with these normal bacteria, and the other group with microbes in which the gene responsible for the production of nitric oxide was artificially "knocked out". As a result, the worms from the first group lived on average up to two weeks – about 15 percent longer than their counterparts who ate the "defective" hay stick.
Biologists found that nitric oxide from bacterial cells penetrated into the intestinal tissues of C.elegans, where it controlled the work of 65 genes, some of which are associated with aging and the response of cells to stress. This "conducting" did not occur directly, but through two hsf-1 and daf-16 proteins involved in transcription – the "reading" of genetic information from DNA molecules.
Amazing result"There has been no direct evidence of the role of nitric oxide in aging and cell resistance to stress until now," the head of the work, one of the world's most cited biologists from Russia, Professor Evgeny Nudler, told RIA Novosti.
According to him, the fact that a molecule "produced" in one organism, in this case bacteria, directly regulates a number of genes of another organism, is in itself surprising.
"It is even more surprising that the key targets of nitric oxide turned out to be well–known regulators of aging - transcription factors, which, by the way, are conservative in the evolution from worms to humans. Therefore, in principle, our data can also be extrapolated to mammals," Nudler said.
Now the authors of the work intend to find out the specific contribution of regulated NO genes to aging and other processes in the body, the scientist added.
Will nitroglycerin slow down aging?Since the effect of taking nitroglycerin to dilate the blood vessels of the heart is associated with the additional "production" of NO in the body, it is logical to assume that this drug can play a role in slowing down aging.
This approach makes sense, says Nudler.
"In fact, nitroglycerin may well serve as a geroprotector (a substance that inhibits aging – ed.), since the amount of nitric oxide decreases with age, and its partial replenishment should have a positive effect in general, not only on blood pressure," the scientist noted.
"However, unfortunately, nitroglycerin becomes addictive, and over time it ceases to have its therapeutic effect, at least on the cardiovascular system," he said.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru15.02.2013