Congratulations to Michael Bene on his publication in Geroscience!
Michael Bene is an Integrated Biomedical Sciences PhD student in the lab of Adam Salmon, PhD with the Sam and Ann Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies. Mike’s work used the existing literature to test the question: if a longevity intervention works in worms or flies does that suggest success in extending lifespan in mice? Surprisingly, his study suggests there are limitations to this approach and that there may be limited benefit to these types of approaches for identifying pharamaceutial approaches to improve healthy aging.
Testing the evidence that lifespan-extending compound interventions are conserved across laboratory animal model species
Michael Bene & Adam B. Salmon
Geroscience. 2023 Jan 13. doi: 10.1007/s11357-022-00722-0.
Abstract:
A growing number of pharmaceutical and small molecule interventions are reported to extend the lifespan of laboratory animals including Caenorhabditis, Drosophila, and mouse. However, the degree to which these pro-longevity interventions are conserved across species is unclear. Here, we took two approaches to ask the question: to what extent do longevity intervention studies in Caenorhabditis and Drosophila recapitulate effects on mouse lifespan? The first approach analyzes all published reports on longevity in the literature collated by the DrugAge database, and the second approach focused on results designed for reproducibility as reported from the NIA-supported Interventions Testing Program (ITP) and the Caenorhabditis Interventions Testing Program (CITP). Using published data sources, we identify only modest sensitivity and specificity of Drosophila interventional studies for identifying pro-longevity compounds in mouse lifespan studies. Surprisingly, reported studies in C. elegans show little predictive value for identifying drugs that extend lifespan in mice. The results therefore suggest caution should be used when making assumptions about the translatability of lifespan-extending compounds across species, including human intervention.
Keywords: Aging; Comparative biology; Interventions; Longevity.