AI Article Synopsis
- Aging is common in multicellular animals, but some primitive species show no signs of aging, leading to questions about how aging evolved in metazoans.
- Research indicates that sexual reproduction is linked to aging, with the evolutionary theory "pleiotropy" suggesting that aging might be a trade-off for reproductive success earlier in life.
- Studies on the sexually differentiated hydra species H. oligactis reveal signs of aging, including decreased abilities in food capture and reproduction, an increase in mortality rates, and changes in cell composition, supporting the pleiotropy theory.
Article Abstract
Aging occurs in most multicellular animals, yet some primitive animals do not show any sign of aging. This raises the following question: How have metazoans acquired the trait of aging in the course of evolution? Comparative studies of various species have provided a clue to this question by showing that sexually reproducing organisms predominantly undergo aging. The evolutionary theory "pleiotropy" also postulates aging as a price for facilitating the reproduction in the early life stage of an organism. For investigating the association between sexual reproduction and aging, a sexual phase-inducible organism in a laboratory would be suitable. One of such organisms is hydra, a genus of Cnidaria. Asexual hydra has been considered to be immortal, but there is the possibility that hydra undergoes aging after sexual reproduction. To search for signs of aging in hydra, we studied sexually differentiated Hydra oligactis at the individual and cellular levels. As a result, we found a significant decline in the capacities for food capture, contractile movements, and reproduction. More importantly, we discovered an exponential increase in the mortality rate of the population. These observations suggest that the degenerative process in H. oligactis represents the aging process. Furthermore, we found that the number of germ cells increased, whereas the number of somatic cells concomitantly decreased. The observed change of the cell composition is thus consistent with the "pleiotropy" theory of aging.
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| http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gene.2006.06.031 | DOI Listing |
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