Issue 2, 2009

By the abstracts:

"Stimulation of Autophagy by Antilipolytic Drugs May Rescue Rodents from Age-Associated Hypercholesterolemia" by Sara Straniero, Gabriella Cavallini, Alessio Donati, Valentina Pallottini, Chiara Martini, Anna Trentalance, and Ettore Bergamini. Fasted rats overnight and injected them with 3,5-dimethylpyrazole, an antilipolytic agent, supposedly to induce macroautophagy. Total LDL, HDL and triglycerides were lowered to young rat levels. They say this happened through restoration of high LDL receptor levels in the rats' livers. Not sure if they confirmed autophagy.

"Adeno-Associated Virus-8-Mediated Intravenous Transfer of Myostatin Propeptide Leads to Systemic Functional Improvements of Slow but Not Fast Muscle" by Keith Foster, Ian R. Graham, Anthony Otto, Helen Foster, Capucine Trollet, Paul J. Yaworsky, Frank S. Walsh, Dale Bickham, Nancy A. Curtin, Susannah L. Kawar, Ketan Patel, and George Dickson. This was in mice. Muscle mass went up all around, with larger fibres, but only the slow muscle increased force. Very cool.

"Association of the FOXO3A Locus with Extreme Longevity in a Southern Italian Centenarian Study" by Chiara Viviani Anselmi, Alberto Malovini, Roberta Roncarati, Valeria Novelli, Francesco Villa, Gianluigi Condorelli, Riccardo Bellazzi, and Annibale Alessandro Puca. Tons of cites. Validation study in Italian centenarian population of FOXO3A SNPs (rs2802292, rs2764264, and rs13217795) associated with longevity in Hawaiian Japanese population. These studies always sound statistically suspect. Anyway, odds ratio 1.5 on minor allele of rs2802288 (which one's minor is hard to tell since it's an almost fifty-fifty split), a proxy for rs2802292.

"A Comprehensive Review on Mesenchymal Stem Cell Growth and Senescence" by Krzysztof Książek. Again, tons of cites. Reading the abstract of a "comprehensive review" is not going to tell me shit. Meant to be about advances in getting MSCs to expand in vitro.

"Age-Associated Decrease of High-Density Lipoprotein-Mediated Reverse Cholesterol Transport Activity" by Hicham Berrougui and Abdelouahed Khalil. Review paper of what the title says.

"Advocating Vaccination of Adults Aged 60 Years and Older in Western Europe: : Statement by the Joint Vaccine Working Group of the European Union Geriatric Medicine Society and the International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics–European Region" by Jean-Pierre Michel, Christian Chidiac, Beatrix Grubeck-Loebenstein, Robert W. Johnson, Paul Henri Lambert, Stefania Maggi, Robert Moulias, Karl Nicholson, and Hans Werner. Vaccines are good.

"Characteristics, Formation, and Pathophysiology of Glucosepane: A Major Protein Cross-Link" by Johan Svantesson Sjöberg and Sven Bulterijs. What the title says. Glucosepane is the most common AGE. It cross-links collagen and it lives in the extracellular space.

In the thesis review section, the first thesis is about cranial irradiation stopping hippocampal neurogenesis, and using this fact to investigate what hippocampal neurogenesis is needed for, and also what is stopping it (inflammation seems to be the answer to the last one, specifically monocyte chemoattractant protein 1).