Research led by the University of Rochester links the bowhead whale’s remarkable longevity and cancer resistance to a DNA-repair protein: CIRBP. As part of the project, University of Sheffield scientists Dr Dan Hayman and Dr Mirre Simons found that CIRBP can extend lifespan and improve resistance to radiation in fruit flies. This finding suggests that a single DNA repair protein may be able to improve healthy ageing across species.
As humans age, we become more vulnerable to cancer and other diseases. Bowhead whales, however, can live for up to 200 years while staying remarkably disease-resistant. How does one of the largest animals on Earth stay healthy for centuries? And could their biology hold clues to help humans live longer too?
New research from scientists at the University of Rochester and their collaborators suggests one answer lies in a protein called CIRBP. The protein plays a key role in repairing double-strand breaks in DNA, a type of genetic damage that can cause disease and shorten lifespan in a variety of species, including humans.
A study published in Nature, - led by biology professors Vera Gorbunova and Andrei Seluanov (University of Rochester)— found that bowhead whales have much higher levels of CIRBP than other mammals. Using a wide range of experiments, they then showed that DNA repair was substantially improved when CIRBP expression was higher.
If the higher level of CIRBP explains the bowhead whale’s extreme lifespan, the crucial next step was to determine if this effect could be replicated in other animals.
The fruit fly is a highly powerful model to test longevity interventions as it is short-lived and can be genetically manipulated with high precision. The fact that a DNA repair protein is able to extend lifespan in a model organism gives us renewed motivation to study how we can improve DNA repair to improve healthy ageing in our own species.
Dr Mirre Simons
Building on the Rochester team's discovery, Dr Dan Hayman and Dr Mirre Simons (University of Sheffield) demonstrated that in the short-lived fruit fly, CIRBP was able to extend lifespan and improve resistance to radiation (which significantly increases DNA damage). This evidence provides support for CIRBP's potential as a target for healthy ageing interventions.