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Genetic manipulation of cardiac ageing
Author(s) -
Can Leah,
Bodmer Rolf
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
the journal of physiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.802
H-Index - 240
eISSN - 1469-7793
pISSN - 0022-3751
DOI - 10.1113/jp270563
Subject(s) - ageing , drosophila melanogaster , cardiac hypertrophy , disease , drosophila (subgenus) , biology , heart disease , medicine , gene , muscle hypertrophy , genetics
Ageing in humans is associated with a significant increase in the prevalence of cardiovascular disease. We still do not fully understand the molecular mechanisms underpinning this correlation. However, a number of insights into which genes control cardiac ageing have come from studying hearts of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster . The fly's simple heart tube has similar molecular structure and basic physiology to the human heart. Also, both fly and human hearts experience significant age‐related morphological and functional decline. Studies on the fly heart have highlighted the involvement of key nutrient sensing, ion channel and sarcomeric genes in cardiac ageing. Many of these genes have also been implicated in ageing of the mammalian heart. Genes that increase oxidative stress, or are linked to cardiac hypertrophy or neurodegenerative diseases in mammals also affect cardiac ageing in the fruit fly. Moreover, fly studies have demonstrated the potential of exercise and statins to treat age‐related cardiac disease. These results show the value of Drosophila as a model to discover the genetic causes of human cardiac ageing.