Volume 3 Issue 11, November 2023

Female fecundity decreases one to two decades before the menopausal transition. A study by Zhang et al. now identifies aging-related decline of the polyamine spermidine as a crucial bottleneck for oocyte quality. Supplementation with spermidine rejuvenates oocytes in vitro and in vivo, and leads to improved fertility of middle-aged female mice.

Epigenome deregulation is considered a hallmark of aging; however, the function of the alteration of DNA methylation in aged tissues is a long-standing question. Hong and colleagues reveal the mechanism and consequences of DNA methylation loss at heterochromatin regions in aged hematopoietic stem cells.

Plants have an additional organelle to animals (the chloroplast), which means that they have a greater repertoire of protein homeostasis (proteostasis) mechanisms. We find that chloroplast proteostasis components prevent aggregation of a pathogenic fragment of human huntingtin expressed in plants, which reveals a potential avenue for therapeutic intervention in human proteinopathies.

Cognitive frailty (CF) is the complex and intertwined co-occurrence of physical frailty and cognitive decline. Untangling the interplay between these two domains and correctly diagnosing CF in the clinic is vital for early diagnosis and intervention.

To build health equity for an aging world, research at the intersections of biology, toxicology and the social and behavioral sciences points the way: to promote healthy aging, focus on the environment.

Unlike animals, plants prevent pathological polyQ aggregation through chloroplast proteostasis. Expression of the chloroplast protein SSP in human cell and nematode models prevents disease-related protein aggregation and neurodegeneration.

CREB-regulated transcriptional coactivators (CRTCs) have an important role in modulating transcription in a context-dependent manner. Here the authors dissect the role of CRTC-1 in worm lifespan and show that the CRTC-1 transcriptional domain ensures longevity under specific histone marks.

Advanced age is a primary risk factor for female infertility due to declining oocyte quantity and quality. Here Yu Zhang et al. report that supplementation with spermidine rejuvenates the quality of oocytes from aged mice at least in part by enhancing mitophagy and mitochondrial function.

Hong, Li and colleagues unveil a pivotal role of TET2 in heterochromatin relocalization, aberrant upregulation of endogenous retroviruses and overactivated innate immune response in hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells during aging.

Sun et al. identify a stem cell population of CD133⁺ endothelial-like cells (ELCs) that contribute to neovascularization. ELCs become dysfunctional with age, but ELC supplementation or pamidronate treatment to counter ELC aging promotes longevity.

Guo et al. demonstrate that oral administration of chiral nanoparticles ameliorates Alzheimer’s disease-associated pathology and cognitive decline in mice via an increase in the gut metabolite, indole-3-acetic acid, potentially a therapeutic target.

Using spatial and single-cell multiomics, Nikopoulou et al analyze how different cells within the mouse liver age, revealing zonation-specific aging trajectories and highlighting the importance of the local tissue microenvironment.

Change in intercellular communication is an important but poorly characterized hallmark of aging. Here the authors provide a bioinformatics tool to infer changes in cell–cell signaling and an atlas of age-related communication changes in 23 mouse tissues.