Science for University Students. Part II. Translations. Сологуб Л.И. - 14 стр.

UptoLike

ВУЗ: 

СГАУ | Самара

Составители: 

Рубрика: 

Text 7
Molecular Gerontology
___________________________________________________________________________
Molecular Biology of Aging. Caleb E.Finch and Thomas E. Johnson, New York, 2000
________________________________________________________________
The promise that complex biological processes may be understood – at
least in broad outline – at a molecular or biochemical level has begun to be
fulfilled for some areas of biology. Thus, the molecular biology of development
and cancer are tangible and viable fields, although still in their infancy. In other
areas, the promise is as yet mostly unrealized, but the hope that molecular
biology will soon help penetrate the mysteries of brain function or aging, for
example, is stronger than ever.
Readers expecting to find in the present volume molecular paradigms for
organismal or cellular aging will be largely disappointed, however. The book is
more a testimony to hope in the power of molecular biology than a
documentation of its achievements in aging research.
The book covers a diverse range of topics in genetics, biochemistry, and
cell biology as they relate to aging in intact organisms or cultured cells. The
diversity of topics reflects the pleiotropic effects of aging – even when studied
in simple cell culture systems. There are chapters on the genetics of life-span in
yeast, nematodes, insects, and mice; the incidence and repair of radiation-
induced and oxidative damage to DNA, proteins, and cell membranes; the
control of DNA replication and cell proliferation; selective and programmed cell
death; and the control of general and specific gene expression. Even with such a
broad range of topics, the book falls short of being really comprehensive. For
the knowledgeable reader, however, most of the chapters will serve as accessible
and concise introductions or updates.
In most of the book’s 27 chapters, the authors clearly relate their data to
organismal or cellular aging, if not directly through experimental design, then
indirectly through often (but not always) lucid discussions. There are a few
chapters that clearly show the successful and promising use of molecular
biology to study aging. The best of these is a chapter that describes the cloning
of a gene that extends the lifespan of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. A
few other chapters describe preliminary data on how cloning and a genetically
malleable organism can be used to isolate similar candidate genes.
The majority of the chapters describe studies in which a molecular
biological approach is apparent, but only in a very preliminary form. Some of
these chapters are certainly stimulating, but a molecular framework for
understanding the age-related phenomenon under study must often be teased out
by the reader. For example, there are studies describing age-associated
alterations in the mRNA levels for several genes, some of which – such as those
involved in the stress response or in protection from oxidative damage – are
13

Страницы