Tobias Eisenberg: "Anti-Aging Strategies: From Elixirs to Mechanisms"

Tobias Eisenberg
Institute of Molecular Biosciences, Graz, Austria

Anti-Aging Strategies: From Elixirs to Mechanisms

Aging is guided by cellular and organismal metabolic processes. While caloric restriction extends life span in a multitude of organisms, glucose- or fat-enriched diets have been reported to accelerate aging. Cytoprotective autophagy, whose regulation strongly depends on nutrient availability as well as nutrient-responsive signaling, has emerged as one of the most crucial pathways for healthy aging and longevity. I will talk about our recent research developments on the longevity-promoting and autophagy-inducing function of the natural polyamine spermidine. We further show that distinct pathways of vital energy metabolism are crucial regulators of autophagy and chronological aging in the model organism yeast and identify central energy metabolic enzymes, whose modulation (genetic or pharmacological) affects age- and starvation-induced autophagy in yeast and mammalian cells, respectively. Both, exogenous application of spermidine and modulation of intrinsic energy metabolism profoundly alters histone- and protein-acetylation profiles. Acetylation of autophagy relevant gene products has been repeatedly connected to the regulation of autophagy. Thus, our research aims at understanding how known longevity elixirs and vital energy metabolic pathways regulate autophagy by changing autophagy-relevant protein acetylation.