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      Deletion of microRNA-80 Activates Dietary Restriction to Extend C. elegans Healthspan and Lifespan

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          Abstract

          Caloric/dietary restriction (CR/DR) can promote longevity and protect against age-associated disease across species. The molecular mechanisms coordinating food intake with health-promoting metabolism are thus of significant medical interest. We report that conserved Caenorhabditis elegans microRNA-80 ( mir-80) is a major regulator of the DR state. mir-80 deletion confers system-wide healthy aging, including maintained cardiac-like and skeletal muscle-like function at advanced age, reduced accumulation of lipofuscin, and extended lifespan, coincident with induction of physiological features of DR. mir-80 expression is generally high under ad lib feeding and low under food limitation, with most striking food-sensitive expression changes in posterior intestine. The acetyltransferase transcription co-factor cbp-1 and interacting transcription factors daf-16/FOXO and heat shock factor-1 hsf-1 are essential for mir-80(Δ) benefits. Candidate miR-80 target sequences within the cbp-1 transcript may confer food-dependent regulation. Under food limitation, lowered miR-80 levels directly or indirectly increase CBP-1 protein levels to engage metabolic loops that promote DR.

          Author Summary

          Dietary restriction, limitation of calorie intake with maintained vitamin and mineral support, can extend lifespan and protect against diseases of age across many species. Elaboration of molecular mechanisms that control dietary restriction in simple animal models may therefore inform on strategies to activate health-promoting metabolism to help address clinical challenges associated with aging and age-associated disease. We characterize a single Caenorhabditis elegans microRNA gene that keeps dietary restriction programs off when food is abundant. A mir-80 deletion exhibits beneficial features of dietary restriction regardless of food availability, including extended maintenance of mobility and cardiac-like muscle function later into life as well as lifespan extension. We identify three key longevity genes that are required for these benefits. We hypothesize that miR-80 is a core regulator by which diverse and intersecting metabolic pathways are coordinately regulated to respond to nutrient availability.

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          Most cited references35

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          MicroRNAs to Nanog, Oct4 and Sox2 coding regions modulate embryonic stem cell differentiation.

          MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short RNAs that direct messenger RNA degradation or disrupt mRNA translation in a sequence-dependent manner. For more than a decade, attempts to study the interaction of miRNAs with their targets were confined to the 3' untranslated regions of mRNAs, fuelling an underlying assumption that these regions are the principal recipients of miRNA activity. Here we focus on the mouse Nanog, Oct4 (also known as Pou5f1) and Sox2 genes and demonstrate the existence of many naturally occurring miRNA targets in their amino acid coding sequence (CDS). Some of the mouse targets analysed do not contain the miRNA seed, whereas others span exon-exon junctions or are not conserved in the human and rhesus genomes. miR-134, miR-296 and miR-470, upregulated on retinoic-acid-induced differentiation of mouse embryonic stem cells, target the CDS of each transcription factor in various combinations, leading to transcriptional and morphological changes characteristic of differentiating mouse embryonic stem cells, and resulting in a new phenotype. Silent mutations at the predicted targets abolish miRNA activity, prevent the downregulation of the corresponding genes and delay the induced phenotype. Our findings demonstrate the abundance of CDS-located miRNA targets, some of which can be species-specific, and support an augmented model whereby animal miRNAs exercise their control on mRNAs through targets that can reside beyond the 3' untranslated region.
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            Stochastic and genetic factors influence tissue-specific decline in ageing C. elegans.

            The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is an important model for studying the genetics of ageing, with over 50 life-extension mutations known so far. However, little is known about the pathobiology of ageing in this species, limiting attempts to connect genotype with senescent phenotype. Using ultrastructural analysis and visualization of specific cell types with green fluorescent protein, we examined cell integrity in different tissues as the animal ages. We report remarkable preservation of the nervous system, even in advanced old age, in contrast to a gradual, progressive deterioration of muscle, resembling human sarcopenia. The age-1(hx546) mutation, which extends lifespan by 60-100%, delayed some, but not all, cellular biomarkers of ageing. Strikingly, we found strong evidence that stochastic as well as genetic factors are significant in C. elegans ageing, with extensive variability both among same-age animals and between cells of the same type within individuals.
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              The mechanics of miRNA-mediated gene silencing: a look under the hood of miRISC.

              Since their discovery almost two decades ago, microRNAs (miRNAs) have been shown to function by post-transcriptionally regulating protein accumulation. Understanding how miRNAs silence targeted mRNAs has been the focus of intensive research. Multiple models have been proposed, with few mechanistic details having been worked out. However, the past few years have witnessed a quantum leap forward in our understanding of the molecular mechanics of miRNA-mediated gene silencing. In this review we describe recent discoveries, with an emphasis on how miRISC post-transcriptionally controls gene expression by inhibiting translation and/or initiating mRNA decay, and how trans-acting factors control miRNA action.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: Editor
                Journal
                PLoS Genet
                PLoS Genet
                plos
                plosgen
                PLoS Genetics
                Public Library of Science (San Francisco, USA )
                1553-7390
                1553-7404
                August 2013
                August 2013
                29 August 2013
                : 9
                : 8
                : e1003737
                Affiliations
                [1]Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Nelson Biological Laboratories, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, New Jersey, United States of America
                Stanford University Medical Center, United States of America
                Author notes

                The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

                Conceived and designed the experiments: MV MS. Performed the experiments: MV MS SO BO. Analyzed the data: MV MS. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: MV MS JX BO JZN SG. Wrote the paper: MV MD.

                Article
                PGENETICS-D-13-00262
                10.1371/journal.pgen.1003737
                3757059
                24009527
                c8f8b35f-bbea-439d-ac25-654245dc85db
                Copyright @ 2013

                This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

                History
                : 27 January 2013
                : 7 July 2013
                Page count
                Pages: 15
                Funding
                The work here was supported by NIH R01 AG033858, R21 AG033369 and Arra supplement. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
                Categories
                Research Article

                Genetics
                Genetics

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