Mobile transposons pathway and epigentic changes in roundworms provides a potential way to slow aging

Good news! Towards the fountain of youth! Potentially, a breakthrough found in the famous C. elegans nematode!

"... Their research showed that controlling the activity of TEs can indeed extend lifespan, indicating these mobile DNA elements play a crucial role in the aging process. ..."

"Researchers from Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) in Hungary, had, in 2015 and 2017, published studies theorizing about how a specific process, called the Piwi-piRNA pathway, contributed to aging by helping to control TEs [transposable elements]. Now, in their latest study, they provide experimental proof of how the pathway works. ...
The Piwi-piRNA pathway – whose full name is P element-induced wimpy testis in Drosophila-Piwi-interacting RNA pathway – is a specific RNA silencing mechanism that protects genomes from the adverse mutagenic activity of TEs. While the pathway acts in non-aging cells, it doesn’t act in aging somatic cells, which, due to their accumulating cellular damage, undergo a functional decline called senescence and eventually die. ...

They downregulated active TE families and found that the downregulation of two specific families, Tc1 and Tc3, the most mobile TEs in the roundworm, slowed the aging process at different temperatures. At 68 °F (20 °C), lifespan was extended by around 10%. Simultaneously downregulating both caused the life-extending effects to add up to nearly the sum of lifespan expansion observed in the single treatments. Downregulation of other TE families – Tc2, Tc4, and Tc5 – produced no detectable impact on lifespan. ...

Additionally, the researchers found epigenetic changes in the DNA of these worms as they aged, specifically in the TEs. Epigenetic changes, unlike genetic changes, are reversible and don’t change the DNA sequence but can change how the body reads that sequence. DNA methylation is one of the most important epigenetic modifications and plays a key role in a number of genetic processes. Here, the researchers observed that DNA N6-adenine methylation progressively increased TE jumping as the worm aged. They determined that it may be possible to use this epigenetic modification as an accurate determinant of biological age. ..."

From the abstract:

"Mobility of transposable elements (TEs) frequently leads to insertional mutations in functional DNA regions. In the potentially immortal germline, TEs are effectively suppressed by the Piwi-piRNA pathway. However, in the genomes of ageing somatic cells lacking the effects of the pathway, TEs become increasingly mobile during the adult lifespan, and their activity is associated with genomic instability. Whether the progressively increasing mobilization of TEs is a cause or a consequence of ageing remains a fundamental problem in biology. Here we show that in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, the downregulation of active TE families extends lifespan. Ectopic activation of Piwi proteins in the soma also promotes longevity. Furthermore, DNA N6-adenine methylation at TE stretches gradually rises with age, and this epigenetic modification elevates their transcription as the animal ages. These results indicate that TEs represent a novel genetic determinant of ageing, and that N6-adenine methylation plays a pivotal role in ageing control."

“Jumping genes” pathway provides a potential way to slow aging (secondary news source) Researchers have provided experimental proof of a pathway that controls aging, finding that quieting some mobile DNA sequences in roundworms led to a longer life.

Groundbreaking Research Reveals Potential Methods To Stop Aging (primary news source) Researchers ... have made an exciting breakthrough in understanding how we age. They focused on "transposable elements" (TEs), which are parts of DNA that can move around in our genetic code. When these TEs move too much, they destabilize the genetic code and that can be the reason of aging.

Downregulation of transposable elements extends lifespan in Caenorhabditis elegans (open access)

Inside the worms, the reinforced piwi-piRNA pathway lights up green, which enabled them to live longer by 30%.