Methuselah meets diabetes

Mutations in the daf‐2 and age‐1 genes cause constitutive dauer larva formation and double adult life span in C. elegans . Their effect on life span has excited considerable interest and their effect on dauer formation has facilitated rapid progress in their genetic and molecular analysis. Two recent papers 12,13 report that daf‐2 encodes a member of the insulin‐receptor family and that age‐1 encodes a PI3 kinase subunit, a second‐messenger producing enzyme known to act downstream of the mammalian insulin receptor. These findings provide the first mechanistic insight into the well‐established link between metabolism and aging. BioEssays 20:113–115, 1998. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.