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Pathway Of Igf-1 Pathway

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The insulin/IGF-1 pathway which plays a major role in the control of lifespan and aging in animals and humans includes a lot of genes if any gene transformed with single mutation the IGF-1 pathway can increase lifespan and cause human longevity to remain active and youthful much longer than normal. As in different species, yeast, nematodes and fruit flies there are genes homologous with mammalian genes that control in IGF-1 pathway and mutation in any one of them may be affected on lifespan (Tatar et al., 2003). In the study of model organisms, it was found that the IGF-1 pathway consists of ligands, receptors, insulin receptor substrates, phosphoinositol-3 kinase (PI3K) system, AKT kinases, and forkhead transcriptional factors.
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These pathways are more complex than invertebrate. Mutations that in GH deficiency or in growth hormone receptors cause decreased size, lower insulin levels, increased stress resistance and extend lifespan (Bartke, 2008). Whereas GH is mediated through IGF-1 and effect on lifespan in these mice may be mediated by this pathway. Heterozygous deletion mutations of the IGF-1 receptor (IGF1R) gene causes a little reduction in size but a similar phenotype of improved stress resistance and longevity in females only (Holzenberger et al., 2003). But in dogs, there is no evidence that IGF-1 signaling regulates lifespan because dog breeds have a strong inverse correlation with body size (Patronek et al., 1997). Derangement of the insulin receptor (INSR) gene in most tissues leads to insulin resistance and shortened lifespan in mice (Okamoto and Accili, 2003); but homozygous deletion mutation in this gene specific to fat cells have the extended lifespan in both sexes (Bluher et al., 2003). These results indicate that tissue-specific effects are important for these pathways. Where a knockout of the downstream signaling adapter protein (IRS1) also resulted in increased lifespan (Selman et al., 2008).
There are several mechanisms demonstrated that the IGF-1 may affect aging with DAF-16/FOXO which stimulates the transcription of heat shock protein genes that related to stress resistance (Murphy et al., 2003). Moreover, FOXO3A gene can operate as a checkpoint on cell cycle

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