Abstract

Eukaryotes come in many shapes and sizes, yet one thing that they all seem to share is a decline in vitality and health over time — a process known as ageing. If there are conserved causes of ageing, they may be traced back to common biological structures that are inherently difficult to maintain throughout life. One such structure is chromatin, the DNA–protein complex that stabilizes the genome and dictates gene expression. Studies in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae have pointed to chromatin reorganization as a main contributor to ageing in that species, which raises the possibility that similar processes underlie ageing in more complex organisms.

Author affiliations

1. Department of Pathology, Paul F. Glenn Laboratories for the Biological Mechanisms of Aging, Harvard Medical School, 77 Avenue Louis Pasteur, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

Correspondence to: David A. Sinclair¹ Email: david_sinclair@hms.harvard.edu

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