Adipose tissue genomic fingerprints of aging

已有研究表明，衰老过程中脂肪组织的堆积是糖尿病和动脉粥样硬化发展的重要因素。此外，两项独立的研究发现，脂肪组织含量低与寿命延长有关。这些发现得到了这样一个事实的支持，即卡路里限制--唯一被证明可以延长哺乳动物寿命的非遗传疗法--主要影响脂肪组织中的能量储存。因此，脂肪组织似乎是衰老和与年龄相关的代谢紊乱的一个非常重要的因素。尽管如此，我们对脂肪组织中参与年龄相关代谢性疾病发病机制的基因了解很少。我们建议使用简单但非常强大的差异显示技术来帮助发现在年龄相关疾病的发展中至关重要的基因。将测量年轻、老年和卡路里限制的老年大鼠脂肪组织中每一个基因的水平，并进行相互匹配，并分析每个基因水平的每一个差异。这种高通量的方法不仅可以识别与衰老有关的关键基因，而且还具有覆盖整个基因库的优势，因此经常导致迄今未知的关键基因的发现。我们相信，这种技术方法将有助于揭开与年龄相关的疾病发展的基因和机制。

It has been shown that the accumulation of adipose tissue during aging is an important contributor for the development of diabetes and atherosclerosis. In addition, two independent studies found that having low amounts of adipose tissue is associated with an increased longevity. These findings are supported by the fact that calorie restriction - the only non-genetic regimen shown to increase lifespan in mammals - primarly affects energy stores in adipose tissue. Thus, adipose tissue appears to be a very important contributor of aging and age-related metabolic disorders. Despite of this, we have very little understanding of the genes in adipose tissue that are involved in the pathogenesis of age-related metabolic diseases. We propose to use the simple yet very powerful differential display technique to help discover the genes that are important in the development of age-associated disorders. The level of every single gene from the adipose tissue of young, old and calorie-restricted old rats will be measured, matched between each other, and every single difference in the level of each of these genes will be analyzed. This high-throughput method not only allows the crucial identification of genes involved in aging but also has the advantage of covering the entire genetic pool and thus often leads to the discovery of key genes unknown so far. We believe that such technical approach will help to unravel the genes and mechanisms underlying the development of age-related disorders.