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Ageing

A message from the gonads

Nature volume 399, pages 308–309 (1999)Cite this article

Animal evolution is commonly viewed as producing diverse, environmentally adapted bodies to propagate the germ line. The evolutionary theory of ageing suggests that genetic limits to lifespan may be inadvertent consequences of evolutionary selection for maximizing that propagation. In other words, trade-offs occur that favour reproductive success over post-reproductive longevity1; lifespan should be inversely correlated with fecundity when progeny production diverts resources from the maintenance of somatic (non-reproductive) cells. The germ line contains all the genetic information to specify the soma. But it is also possible that there are other, environmentally modulated instructions for life history that the germ line conveys to the soma to maximize reproduction.

In their intriguing paper on page 362 of this issue2, Hsin and Kenyon explore this possibility. From their data, it seems that the reproductive system of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans regulates longevity by means of an insulin or insulin-like growth-factor (IGF-1) signalling pathway. Some general functional parallels between the nematode pathway and insulin signalling in vertebrates have been inferred from the phenotypes of the mutant nematode receptor3, but the functions of insulin-like sequences in the C. elegans genome have not yet been determined. Nevertheless, downregulation of the pathway in C. elegans was known to result in long life3,4,5, and now it appears that part of that signal is under the control of the gonads.

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Figure 1: A model for gonadal influences on lifespan arising from the results of Hsin and Kenyon2.

References

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  1. the Molecular Biology Program and the Division of Biological Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, 65211, Missouri, USA

    Donald L. Riddle

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  1. Donald L. Riddle
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Riddle, D. A message from the gonads. Nature 399, 308–309 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/20557

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