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Updated: Jun 18, 2026

Assessment of de novo Protein Synthesis Rates in Caenorhabditis elegans
Published on: September 12, 2020
[The mechanism of phenoptosis: I. Age-dependent decrease of the overall rate of protein synthesis is caused by the
Abstract:
The age-dependent degradation of all vital processes of an organism can be result of influences of destructive factors (the stochastic mechanism of aging), or effect of realizations of the genetic program (phenoptosis). The stochastic free-radical theory of aging dominating now contradicts the set of empirical data, and the semicentenial attempts to create the means to slow down aging did not give any practical results. It makes obvious that the stochastic mechanism of aging is incorrect. At the same time, the alternative mechanism of the programmed aging is not developed yet but preconditions for it development have already been created. It is shown that the genes controlling process of aging exist (contrary to the customary opinion) and the increase in the level of damaged macromolecules (basic postulate of the free-radical theory) can be explained by programmed attenuation of bio-energetics. As the bio-energetics is a driving force of all vital processes, decrease of its level is capable to cause degradation of all functions of an organism. However to transform this postulate into a basis of the theory of phenoptosis it is necessary to show, that attenuation of bio-energetics predetermines such fundamental processes accompanying aging as decrease of the overall rate of protein biosynthesis, restriction of cellular proliferations (Hayflick limit), loss of telomeres etc. This article is the first step in this direction: the natural mechanism of interaction of overall rate of protein synthesis with a level of cellular bio-energetics is shown. This is built-in into the translation machine and based on dependence of recirculation rate of eukaryotic initiation factor 2 (elF2) from ATP/ADP value that is created by mitochondrial bio-energetic machine.
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