Network reconstruction reveals new links between aging and calorie restriction in yeast

Aging affects all known organisms and has been studied extensively. Yet, the underlying mechanisms are insufficiently understood, possibly due to the multiscale complexity involved in this process: the aging of multicellular organisms depends on the aging of their cells, which depends on molecular events occurring in each cell. However, the aging of unicellular populations seeded in new niches and the aging of metazoans are surprisingly similar, indicating that the multiscale aspects of aging may have been conserved since the beginnings of cellular life on Earth. This underlines the importance of aging research in unicellular organisms such as a recent study by Lorenz et al., [(2009) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 106, 1145-1150]. In their paper, the authors combine computational network identification with extensive experimentation and literature mining to discover and validate numerous regulatory interactions among ten genes involved in the cellular response to glucose starvation. Since low levels of glucose (calorie restriction) have been known to extend the longevity of various eukaryotes, the authors test the effect of Snf1 kinase overexpression on chronological aging and discover that this key regulator of glucose repression and two of its newly discovered synergistic repressors significantly affect the chronological lifespan of baker's yeast.