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Asked by anon-251540 to Soudi on 1 May 2020.
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Soudabeh Imanikia answered on 1 May 2020:
Hi! That is a fantastic question, in fact was my own question when I started working on C. elegans (the nematode worm that I work with). It is not a direct point to point comparison. There are conserved pathways and genes that can have the same effect all the way from worms to humans. As C. elegans is simple, lives around 2-3 week, it is easy to follow up the whole “ageing” paradigm in it and to look for clues that are shared between them and us humans. It provides the basic and foundation for higher organism studies. Once we find a target in worms that have a similar target gene in higher organisms then other scientists can find mammalian (and ultimately human) keys.
We also can do compund screenings for age-related drugs using worms, again cheap, easy to handle and short lifespan allows us to the “basic biology” research. I study Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s diseases (age-related neurodegenerative diseases) using these worms!
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Comments
Keith commented on :
One way to think about ageing is that for individual cells damage occurs over time – from sunlight, chemicals, microbes and others – and while cells have the ability to remove damaged parts of themselves or repair them, it is not perfect. So over time this damage accumulates across the cell, to their proteins, their membranes and DNA and thereby the cells age, or simply get old. This is the same in humans as in worms, or hedgehogs, flies and plankton. Aging also occurs on a larger scale in organs but the principle is the same. Interestingly, their is a particular jellyfish that does not age! It has the ramarkable ability to regenerate itself again and again, it sinply goes back to being young again when it gets too stressed out! It is called Turritopsis dohrnii.
Fun science video about this jellyfish: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kLSiE-eNjw