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wormcast.bsky.social
Wormcast
@wormcast.bsky.social
13 followers 17 following 11 posts
An account chronicling a self-funded PhD student and science communicator who is currently diving headfirst into the wonderful and weird world of soil biology, intermixed with science stories in bite sized chunks with the odd piece of artistic flare.
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"Fountain of small, naked, wrinkly youth"

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"Fountain of small, naked, wrinkly youth" Humans have always sought the haunted fountain of youth, a process by which to stave off the slow inexecrable onset of age-related illness and finally death. Scientists have often looked to the small, naked, but surprisingly age-resistant naked mole rat (Heterocephalus glaber) as a treasure trove of anti-aging hints. Naked mole rats have the highest longevity of any rodent with an average lifespan of nearly 30 years. They achieve this via a series of remarkable biological adaptions which often reduce markers of aging and even cancer incidence. Researchers (Science) have revealed yet another mechanism by which mole rats stave off life’s inevitable decay. The enzyme cyclic guanosine monophosphate-adenosine monophosphate synthase (cGAS) in most animals, including humans, acts to regulate DNA repair by suppressing the homologous recombination (HR) pathway which usually provides effective repair of DNA following a double strand break. This suppression results in increased incidences of the repair mechanism making mistakes, causing genomic instability, and ultimately resulting in cellular aging. However, naked mole rats have a modified version of cGAS which instead of supressing the HR pathway, it promotes it. This complete reversal of function is caused by the substitution of four amino acid residues on the proteins C-terminus. This small change allows the mole rat cGAS to remain bound to chromatin for longer following DNA damage. This prolonged binding facilitated the assembly of a complex which potentiated the HR repair pathway. The researchers then encoded naked mole rats modified version of cGAS into fruit flies and mice, the result of which was a significant reduction in cellular senescence, organ failure, inflammation, frailty and even hair greying. Full Paper: Yu Chen et al. ,A cGAS-mediated mechanism in naked mole-rats potentiates DNA repair and delays aging.Science390,eadp5056(2025). DOI:10.1126/science.adp5056
July 28, 2026 at 5:41 PM