Increased fidelity of protein synthesis extends lifespan

We would like to understand how errors in translation impact ageing. In stark contrast to the well-established effect of DNA mutations on multi-cellular organismal ageing and disease, the role of translation errors is far less studied and understood.

Translation errors are rarely investigated in the context of multi-cellular organismal physiology and their effect on ageing of metazoan organisms remains unexplored. We hypothesised that improving fidelity of protein synthesis could be an anti-ageing intervention in multi-cellular organisms.

We investigated the physiological consequences of directly mutating a single evolutionarily conserved residue in the decoding centre of the ribosome and examined for the first time in metazoan species the effect of increased translation fidelity on ageing.

Great interest in the biology of ageing stems from a possibility to improve health in the elderly by mimicking the effect of longevity mutations on organismal physiology through pharmacological approaches. We explore the effect of known anti-ageing drugs on translation fidelity and we also investigate novel screening approaches for pharmacological anti-ageing therapies.