AGEING-ASSOCIATED CHANGES IN TRANSCRIPTIONAL ELONGATION INFLUENCE LONGEVITY

Cédric Debès, Antonios Papadakis, Sebastian Grönke, Özlem Karalay, Luke S. Tain, Athanasia Mizi, Shuhei Nakamura, Oliver Hahn, Carina Weigelt, Natasa Josipovic, Anne Zirkel, Isabell Brusius, Konstantinos Sofiadis, Mantha Lamprousi, Yu-Xuan Lu, Wenming

The study investigates how physiological homeostasis is compromised during ageing due to impairments in cellular processes such as transcription and RNA splicing. It profiles genome-wide, ageing-related changes in transcriptional processes across nematodes, fruit flies, mice, rats, and humans. The findings reveal that transcriptional elongation speed increases with age in all species studied, alongside changes in splicing patterns. Notably, interventions like dietary restriction and reduced insulin–IGF signalling can reverse many of these ageing-related changes.