Anti-aging protein
Scientists have discovered a factor of premature aging
Biologists have found that insufficient content in red blood cells of the protein responsible for the release of oxygen leads to deterioration of cognitive abilities and premature aging.
The results of the study are published in the journal PLOS Biology (Qiang et al., Erythrocyte adenosine A2B receptor prevents cognitive and auditory dysfunction by promoting hypoxic and metabolic reprogramming).
Researchers from the USA and China in experiments on mice found that with a decrease in the blood content of the ADORA2B protein in animals, memory and hearing deteriorate, inflammation develops in the brain and aging accelerates.
Adenosine receptor A2B, or ADORA2B, is part of the membrane of red blood cells, red blood cells and helps to release oxygen from the blood. It is known that its content in the blood decreases with age. The authors suggested that there is a direct link between this decline and brain aging.
To test this idea, they bred mice with no ADORA2B in their blood and compared their behavioral and physiological indicators with animals from the control group.
The results showed that as they aged, the mice deprived of ADORA2B showed stronger signs of cognitive decline than the animals from the control group. Inflammatory processes in the brain also developed rapidly in them.
On young mice, scientists conducted an experiment in which animals were placed in oxygen starvation conditions. In mice without ADORA2B, the behavioral and physiological effects of lack of oxygen were much stronger than in normal mice.
Hence, the authors conclude that the ADORA2B protein regulates the supply of additional oxygen to the brain in case of its deficiency. With age, this intake decreases, and the rate of brain aging largely depends on how effectively this protein works. Therefore, scientists have called ADORA2B an "anti-aging protein".
"Red blood cells perform an irreplaceable function of delivering oxygen to maintain the bioenergetics of each individual cell of the body," the words of the head of the study, Dr. Yang Xia from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of the McGovern Medical School of the University of Texas, are quoted in the press release of the publishing house. "Our results show that the signal cascade of ADORA2B red blood cells, contributing to the delivery of oxygen to the brain, fights the early onset of age-related cognitive decline, memory and hearing impairment."
The authors note that further research will be required to determine whether the level of ADORA2B decreases naturally with age and whether treatment with drugs that activate ADORA2B can reduce cognitive decline and prevent premature aging.
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