Heat shock proteins in long-lived worms and mice with insulin/insulin-like signaling mutations

Heat shock proteins (HSPs) have proven to be effective tools for extending invertebrate lifespan, and in C. elegans daf-2 mutants, longevity resulting from loss of insulin/insulin-like signals is at least partly dependent upon elevated HSP expression. In mice, inhibition of the orthologous growth hormone/insulin-like growth factor I (GH/IGF-I) pathway has similar pro-longevity effects. A recent study, however, suggests that loss of GH/IGF-I signals in long-lived mice does not broadly elevate HSP expression, but in fact decreases HSP expression in many tissue types, such as liver and kidney. The contribution of chaperones to the longevity of long-lived mice with altered GH/IGF-I signals may therefore differ from that described in C. elegans daf-2 mutants. This result, in combination with other recent findings, underscores the possibility that systemic overexpression of chaperones will have dissimilar effects on longevity in vertebrate and invertebrate systems.