A neuroendocrine strategy to delay aging

• Autor(a) principal: Conceição, Hélio Filipe Santana da
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.1/15534
• topic: Envelhecimento; Hipotálamo; Mecanismos de envelhecimento; Proteostasia; Grelina; Longevidade

Aging is an ongoing process that cannot be stopped, being characterized by a progressive loss of physiological integrity. Hallmarks of aging can be divided in 3 major categories: primary, antagonistic and integrative. Hypothalamus is known for is key role in the endocrine system, being responsible to regulate growth, development, reproduction, metabolism, systemic aging, and ultimately lifespan control. Ghrelin, known as the “hunger hormone”, plays not only a major role in food intake but also in whole-body metabolism. With this investigation, we aimed to evaluate the effect of subcutaneous injection of ghrelin in aged mice. For that, we performed 2 kinds of treatment: a short-term treatment, where animals were submitted to 1-month administration of ghrelin and a gong-term treatment, where animals were submitted to a 2-month treatment. We hypothesise that continuous administration of ghrelin in mice will improve several aging hallmarks. We observed that ghrelin treatment induces less stress and anxiety in mice. Plus, treated mice presented higher weight loss, but improved BAT, WAT and pancreatic functions. In BAT, treated mice have less signs of adipocytes death. In pancreas, treated mice have a tendency of having larger pancreatic area and less dead cells. In addition, ghrelin treatment significantly decreased hypothalamus inflammation. We conclude that ghrelin treatment can improve aging hallmarks such as mitochondrial dysfunction, proteostasis and nutrient sensing. This way, ghrelin can be studied in the future as a potential therapeutic approach to extend lifespan.