c-DNA cloning of the extended lifespan gene for the nondividing human cells

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Senescence is an important aging process both during development and for homeostasis in most multicellular organisms. In the human body, some cells such as neurons and skeletal muscle cells, do not divide at all ; others, such as liver cells, normally divide only once every year or two ; while certain epithelial cells in the gut divide more than twice aday. We have built up the working hypothesis that the excellent maintenance of nondivideing cells are more important for longer lifespan. To identify the genes for the extended lifespan of the cells, we developed a diffrential screening method using cDNA expression library. This allowed us to isolate from a nondividing young cells derived cDNA library one clone (els-1) that exhibited excellent extended lifespan when in troduced and expressed in neuronal cells.