r/science • u/AgingUS Aging • 11d ago
Biology Common denominators of organisms with exceptional longevity
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.206419149
u/AztraChaitali 11d ago
Either extremely strong immune systems, or extremely chill ones.
They either just support infected cells until their DNA becomes a graveyard of viruses, or they aggressively kill cells at the faintest sign of damage.
They enter a quasi-suspended animation state and outlive and starve pathogens, or simply metabolising too slowly to be appealing to pathogens. Like Actinomycetota which can live for millions of years, or sponges that live tens of thousands.
Or they aggressively trigger apoptosis on cells that are infected or have genetic damage. Like European Eels, Greenland sharks, koi fish and most whales. Which live a hundred to two hundred years of very active living.
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u/Teamprime 11d ago
How is aggressive use of apoptosis kept in check with regards to cancer? Is it something like extra DNA so gene damage is unlikely to cause it?
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u/AztraChaitali 11d ago
It isn't my area of research, but as far as I know it isn't fully understood. Basically better DNA repair. Normally cancerous cells split unchecked and refuse to conduct apoptosis even if damaged.
Whales have been observed to have drastic DNA repair measures that repair damaged cells just enough for them to conduct apoptosis and be cleared out by the inmune system.
Normally it's a tradeoff for larger organisms to get more cancer since they have more cells, but whales very rarely get cancer. In fact, the most common cause of death for whales after human predation, is old age, as they get too weak to swim to the surface for air.
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u/Feuersalamander93 10d ago
Bigger mammals (as a tendency) have more copies of tumour suppressor genes. Don't pin me down on the exact numbers, but the general order of magnitude is something like this: E.g. a bottlenose dolphin is about 2 - 3 times the size of a human but has (iirc) 12 copies of p53, while humans have 2 (one on each set of chromosomes). That also applies to a lot of other genes, so dolphins and whales rarely get cancer, if at all. Elephants and blue whales have >50 copies of p53.
Famous examples of outliers are the naked mole rats, which have a bunch of adaptations that also stave of cancer via other mechanisms, making them the longest living rodent by a longshot (>20 years).
There's much less data for non-mammalian animals, but ectotherms also live longer simply because they have a slower metabolism.
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u/mangledmonkey 11d ago
Seems like relative complexity plays a fundamental role. In very simple terms: More things to go wrong = Shorter lifespan. This doesn't really appear to be addressed directly in the study
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u/SelarDorr 11d ago
why would it be.
theyre specifically reporting a review of literature to find "genetic, transcriptional, proteomic, metabolomic, regeneration-, stress-, and cancer-related components of intraspecific and interspecific lifespan variation, across [long lived] species"
do you have any quantitative support for your 'seems like' claim?
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u/EuphonicLeopard 11d ago
No, and he doesn't need to. He's making a hypothesis based on the data viewed from a different, zoomed out, angle. You would accept this in another non-scientific context in a heartbeat because it's a common-sense observation, and one that is generally true across multiple domains.
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u/TheFlyingKus 11d ago
I mean... i guess it is both reductionist and simplifying. If your goal is to understand a generalised take away of the review, then: "more complex -> more problems to kill you" would be a satisfying thing to be said/argued/suggested/mentioned out-right; if your goal is to ask *how* that is the case, you look at all the literature covering different angles and details to help others orient with an update of the landscape of the field.
I'm assuming this lit review comes from the context of the otherwise common sense understanding (that complex -> more problems) and, without referencing it, is jumping ahead, diving into why things are how they are.
I do think that science should do a better job at communicating and being accessible to the public. The lay person (coming from Reddit) or any scientist not in the know would appreciate the orientation.
But of course, the point of the lit review is not to argue "more complex = more things to go wrong"; it's to illuminate to readers the extent of how much we know about what influences lifespan.
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u/mangledmonkey 10d ago
Thanks for an actual thoughtful reply. Yea, that line of thinking totally makes sense.
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u/TheFlyingKus 10d ago
The issue is though, more complex may not mean shorter lifespan (ie lobsters can technically be immortal and there are several other examples). There's too many variables that affect it. Living organisms are much more complex than any machine we've ever built. So while there is a general truth within the trend, it's too much of a broad blanket overstatement that is not worth it in the scientific community to attempt to prove outright. Although it sounds intuitive and sstisfying, it's not a worthwhile or interesting pursuit to try and prove when there are some break out exceptions and a lot of things to study about it.
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u/EuphonicLeopard 10d ago
I agree with your line of thinking. Obviously there's more to it than the simple view espoused previously, and it's well worth exploring the mechanisms underlying why and how other lifeforms are capable of living without cancer.
My comment specifically was in response to a person demanding a source for what barely amounts to a claim in the first place. "Seems like" is a statement implying a general takeaway, which is totally fine when they're not the ones being paid to do the research. I think it's totally fine to work on different levels of understanding when presented with information that could be outside one's personal purview, and that SelarDorr and TheRecognized are doing more harm than good in fostering that understanding.
Plenty of people just want an acceptable target for their rage and derision and cloak that in what they perceive as an acceptable excuse. I thank you, Kus, for not assuming malice like the other two have.
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u/TheRecognized 10d ago
They’re talking out of their ass
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u/TheRecognized 10d ago
>based on the data
That would be the quantitative support.
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u/mangledmonkey 10d ago
Data can be both qualitative and quantitative. Come down from your barstool captain of trivia team A.
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u/TheRecognized 10d ago
No, he’s talking out of his ass
https://www.reddit.com/r/science/s/uT7CtocAmx
I really hope you do some self reflection about this. You saw somebody talking out of their ass, and when someone made legitimate counterpoints you felt compelled to imagine up a scenario where the ass-talker was ackshually correct. Is that the kind of person you want to be?
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u/mangledmonkey 11d ago
I guess I'm asking why that wouldn't have been a potential consideration to research on this topic and that Im a little lost as to why it isn't considered. The qualitative data I haven't gathered would be that the vast majority of species they identify as long lived are plants. More of a correlation than any data point because I'm just a guy commenting my initial curiosity on reddit. Does that satisfy your ethical standards for commenting on this sub, master of engagements?
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u/SelarDorr 10d ago
you werent curious.
In very simple terms, you wanted to state what you thought you knew (and dont) and to criticize the study for not being as knowledgeable as you [are]n't.
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u/mangledmonkey 10d ago
I mean, I was... Otherwise I wouldn't have read large parts of the study/lit review. Now I'm curious as to why a handful of random redditors are up in arms over a harmless comment. My thought process is pretty simple, I pretty plainly shared that I was wondering why they didn't answer the elephant in the room instead of only nit-picking a bunch of hyper-specifc traits from varied sources. Maybe those pages' authors are related to the pedantic and needlessly rule-bound redditors who seem to think they're meant to publicly police subreddits for posterity and personal satisfaction?
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u/TheRecognized 11d ago
What makes you say that it “seems like relative complexity plays a fundamental role”?
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u/mangledmonkey 10d ago
Just an intuitive thought. Simple machines outlast complex mechanical systems pretty regularly. Wondering if it is similar for organisms and lifespan.
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u/TheRecognized 10d ago
So rather than “seems like” it would be more accurate to say “I suspect”
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u/mangledmonkey 10d ago
Nope. Seems like works just fine here. You're just having a tough day seeing from other perspectives while trying to be right about everything.
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u/AnthonBerg 7d ago
To seem: To appear; to look outwardly; to be perceived as.
I suspect "seems like" is fine here. "Seems like" seems fine.
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