Open AccessEvolution of mammalian longevity: age-related increase in autophagy in bats compared to other mammals
Author(s) -
Joanna Kacprzyk,
Andrea Locatelli,
Graham M. Hughes,
Zixia Huang,
Michael J. Clarke,
Vera Gorbunova,
Carlotta Sacchi,
Gavin Stewart,
Emma C. Teeling
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
aging
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.473
H-Index - 90
ISSN - 1945-4589
DOI - 10.18632/aging.202852
Subject(s) - autophagy , biology , longevity , transcriptome , zoology , population , evolutionary biology , senescence , gene , microbiology and biotechnology , genetics , gene expression , apoptosis , demography , sociology
Autophagy maintains cellular homeostasis and its dysfunction has been implicated in aging. Bats are the longest-lived mammals for their size, but the molecular mechanisms underlying their extended healthspan are not well understood. Here, drawing on >8 years of mark-recapture field studies, we report the first longitudinal analysis of autophagy regulation in bats. Mining of published population level aging blood transcriptomes ( M. myotis , mouse and human) highlighted a unique increase of autophagy related transcripts with age in bats, but not in other mammals. This bat-specific increase in autophagy transcripts was recapitulated by the western blot determination of the autophagy marker, LC3II/I ratio, in skin primary fibroblasts ( Myotis myotis, Pipistrellus kuhlii , mouse), that also showed an increase with age in both bat species. Further phylogenomic selection pressure analyses across eutherian mammals (n=70 taxa; 274 genes) uncovered 10 autophagy-associated genes under selective pressure in bat lineages. These molecular adaptations potentially mediate the exceptional age-related increase of autophagy signalling in bats, which may contribute to their longer healthspans.