S-Allylcysteine Ameliorates Aging Features via Regulating Mitochondrial Dynamics in Naturally Aged C57BL/6J Mice

S-Allylcysteine (SAC) is the most abundant organosulfur molecule derived from aged garlic. The effects ofSAC on improving Aging in naturally aged C57BL/6J male mice and mitochondrial dynamics in Caenorhabditis elegans and its underlying mechanisms is evaluated.

When mice have attained reproductive senescence at 60 weeks of age, SAC is supplemented to 0.05% and 0.2% into their normal diet for 12 weeks. The results show that SAC could significantly improve the level of hepatic optic atrophy 1 (OPA1) mRNA, which is a key factor for mitochondrial fusion, and consequently elevated the mitochondrial biogenesis-related proteins sirtuin 1 (SIRT1) and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma coactivator-1 alpha (PGC-1α), thus ameliorating oxidative stress, such as malondialdehyde (MDA) in the liver and 8-hydroxy-2'-deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG) in urine. Among the biochemical markers of aging, SAC significantly reduces liver galactosidase β1 (GLB1) and senescence-associated β-galactosidase (SA-βgal), which are induced by replicative senescence. The mitochondria with green fluorescent protein (GFP)-tagged transgenic strain SJ4103 C. elegans is incubated with 5 or 50 µM SAC, and SAC treated groups maintain the linear morphology of mitochondria.

SAC regulates mitochondrial dynamics and ameliorated aging to a significant degree. This study also confirms that mitochondrial dynamics are a promising target for screening materials to combat aging and as a direction for anti-aging product development.