Researchers have named the reason for human longevity. Scientists have linked the relatively long lifespan of Homo sapiens with the p62 gene, which is one of the regulators of autophagy.
Few consider it surprising that a person lives longer than, for example, a mouse. After all, representatives of the species Homo sapiens are quite large, and, as we know, life expectancy in the case of mammals is closely related to their body weight. Simply put, the greater the mass, the longer the creature lives. At the same time, a naked mole rat and a number of other small creatures that are real long-livers live on our planet. What is even more unusual, man himself lives for a very long time in comparison with other mammals, the mass of which can be conditionally compared with the mass of Homo sapiens.
An example of this is the tiger. The body weight of these big cats is even greater than that of humans, and they live in captivity up to about 20-25 years. Our "relatives" - chimpanzees - also lose to humans in terms of life expectancy. What is the reason?
Now geneticist Victor Korolchuk from the University of Newcastle (UK) and his colleagues have tried to answer this question. The focus of molecular biologists has turned out to be autophagy - the process of "processing" by lysosomes (internal organelles of cells) of intracellular debris. Modern scientists have long understood that it plays an important role in protecting cells from stress. In this case, this word does not mean psychological stress, but the accumulation of oxidants and various aggressive molecules in the body that damage the most important components of cells.
Victor Korolchuk and his colleagues drew attention to the p62 gene, which is one of the "conductors" of autophagy. Damage to this gene leads to the development of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Hawking's disease. The observations prompted scientists to suggest that the p62 gene plays an important role in the survival of neurons - brain cells. Many of them "coexist" with a person throughout his life.
Researchers transplanted the p62 gene into the DNA of flies and monitored how the cells of living things changed. It turned out that p62 is an "oxygen sensor", as well as a kind of "trigger" that starts the process of "garbage collection" and its processing inside lysosomes. Genetically modified flies, which were injected with the p62 gene, lived longer. In the case of humans, according to scientists, the gene reacts even more strongly to increases and decreases in the concentration of aggressive molecules inside neurons. The latter, according to the researchers, leads to an extension of human life.
Such a mechanism of "cleaning" from oxidants appeared in humans in the course of tens of thousands of years of evolution, which ultimately allowed him to reach a higher level in terms of longevity.