Rui Silva, researcher at the Algarve Biomedical Center Research Institute (ABC-RI) at the University of Algarve, contributed to the discovery of a mechanism involved in the loss of muscle function associated with aging.
Rui Silva and Rui Martinho, researcher at the Institute of Biomedicine (iBiMED) at the University of Aveiro, are the authors of the most recent study published in the journal Nature Communications. and which results from a collaboration with the University of Bergen, in Norway. At issue is a change in the chemical structure of proteins that protects them from degrading, thus preserving muscle function during aging.
The study now published «brings important discoveries associated with aging and, more specifically, sarcopenia, a disease known for the significant loss of muscle mass and which affects millions of people around the world. Commonly identified as a geriatric condition, the loss of muscle mass is, however, one of the first signs of aging, having a special impact on the quality of life and physical capacity of the elderly, leading to an increase in falls and fractures. and resulting in the need for hospital admissions», explains the University of Algarve in a note.
Despite the impact of the disease, the cellular mechanisms involved in sarcopenia are not yet completely understood, which makes it difficult to develop treatments to delay or reverse the loss of muscle function associated with age.
Based on the idea that understanding these mechanisms could prove to be crucial «for the development of targeted treatments», the research team, composed of Rui Martinho (University of Aveiro), Rui Silva (University of Algarve) and Sylvia Varlad and Thomas Arnesen (University of Bergen, Norway), sought, with this study, to identify the mechanisms involved in the loss of muscle function associated with aging, having managed to demonstrate that a change in the chemical structure of proteins – called N-terminal Acetylation – protects loss of muscle function associated with aging.
The study, carried out using the fruit fly as a model, one of the models with the genome most similar to that of the Human Being, showed that N-terminal acetylation protects a set of proteins existing in cells from degradation.
To reach this conclusion, the researchers manipulated a specific set of genes in order to understand the mechanism by which N-terminal acetylation protects proteins from being degraded, thus preserving muscle function during aging.
According to the researchers, «this modification, by protecting these proteins from degradation, also protects against the loss of muscle function associated with aging».
UAlg warns that these discoveries may be especially relevant since, as the study states, «all the cellular mechanisms described are also present in human cell lines», with indirect data appearing to suggest a relationship between this modification and propensity for physical activity in humans.
It should be noted that, in humans, sarcopenia often precedes the development of other diseases associated with aging, and it is therefore particularly important to think about the implications of this research in promoting a healthy lifestyle.
The article is available here
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