There are mixed implications of these results for understanding the potential contribution of insulin signaling abnormalities to Alzheimer disease (AD) pathogenesis. The finding that brain size is reduced in the bIRS2 -/- both supports the role of IRS2 in brain development and raises the...  Read more

There are mixed implications of these results for understanding the potential contribution of insulin signaling abnormalities to Alzheimer disease (AD) pathogenesis. The finding that brain size is reduced in the bIRS2 -/- both supports the role of IRS2 in brain development and raises the question of potential behavioral deficits in these animals. Further behavioral testing with this model will provide useful data in that regard. There are additional direct implications of this work for Aβ regulation, given suggestions that IRS2 is required for insulin/IGF1-mediated switching from TrkA to the p75NTR neurotrophin receptor, which then stabilizes BACE1 and increases Aβ generation (2). Reducing IRS2-mediated insulin signaling may thus conceivably reduce brain amyloid levels.

One final caveat is needed regarding the extreme plasticity of the ancient and complex insulin signaling pathway. Knockout models of insulin/IGF1 signaling are highly susceptible to effects of reorganization that may not always be easy to discern and control. Replicative findings with conditional knockout models or techniques such as siRNA will help solidify the relevance of these interesting results for human aging and AD.

References:
1. Pardini AW, Nguyen HT, Figlewicz DP, Baskin DG, Williams DL, Kim F, Schwartz MW. Distribution of insulin receptor substrate-2 in brain areas involved in energy homeostasis. Brain Res. 2006 Sep 27;1112(1):169-78. Epub 2006 Aug 22. Abstract

2. Constantini C, Scrable H, Puglielli L. An aging pathway controls the TrkA to p75NTR receptor switch and amyloid β-peptide generation. EMBO. 2006;25:1997-2006.

View all comments by Suzanne Craft

Aging, Cancer, and Neurodegeneration
Matheu et al. (1) have made the important discovery that overexpression of both Arf and p53 under normal regulation can confer cancer resistance, reduce aging-associated damage, and delay normal aging in mice. These results are especially interesting because these authors have previously shown that overexpression of either Arf or p53 alone can confer cancer resistance, but not longevity (2,3), highlighting the tight regulation of the aging process. The authors have provided a rationale for the co-evolution of cancer resistance and longevity, suggesting that it may be possible to live longer without worrying about cancer.

These results have a general impact on many age-related disorders, including neurodegeneration, which also result from age-related cellular damage in the nervous system. Interestingly, p53-mediated cell death has been associated with the progressive neuronal death in Huntington disease, Parkinson disease, Alzheimer disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis...  Read more

Aging, Cancer, and Neurodegeneration
Matheu et al. (1) have made the important discovery that overexpression of both Arf and p53 under normal regulation can confer cancer resistance, reduce aging-associated damage, and delay normal aging in mice. These results are especially interesting because these authors have previously shown that overexpression of either Arf or p53 alone can confer cancer resistance, but not longevity (2,3), highlighting the tight regulation of the aging process. The authors have provided a rationale for the co-evolution of cancer resistance and longevity, suggesting that it may be possible to live longer without worrying about cancer.

These results have a general impact on many age-related disorders, including neurodegeneration, which also result from age-related cellular damage in the nervous system. Interestingly, p53-mediated cell death has been associated with the progressive neuronal death in Huntington disease, Parkinson disease, Alzheimer disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (4). For instance, p53 mediates cellular dysfunction and behavioral abnormalities in Huntington disease (5). In addition, increased expression of Arf and p16ink4a has been shown to decrease brain stem/progenitor cells and neurogenesis during aging and in Bmi1-deficient mice (6-9). Reduced stem/progenitor cell function may be a major cause of the decline in regenerative capacity and contribute to degenerative diseases observed in aging tissues. Thus, it would be of interest to examine whether this Arf/p53 longevity pathway would affect the development of stem/progenitor and progression of neurodegeneration.

The concept of the co-evolution of cancer resistance and longevity is intriguing and significant. However, there are many other examples where longevity and cancer resistance may be antagonistic (10). For example, overexpression of truncated (constitutively active?) p53 leads to premature aging and cancer resistance in mice (11,12). Similarly, we and others have shown that ablation of the prolyl isomerase Pin1 in mice leads to many premature aging phenotypes including neurodegeneration, and also protects against cancer development even induced by overexpression of certain oncogenes or ablation of p53 (13-18). These results are relevant because Pin1 appears to regulate p53 function in response to genotoxic stress (19-21). Therefore, it would be extremely interesting and important to understand how and why cancer resistance and longevity are antagonistic under some conditions, but compatible under some other conditions, and also to investigate the relationship among aging, cancer, and neurodegeneration.

References

1. Matheu A, Maraver A, Klatt P, Flores I, Garcia-Cao I, Borras C, Flores JM, Vina J, Blasco MA, Serrano M. Delayed aging through damage protection by the Arf/p53 pathway. Nature. 2007 Jul 19;448(7151):375-9. Abstract

2. Garcia-Cao I, Garcia-Cao M, Martin-Caballero J, Criado LM, Klatt P, Flores JM, Weill JC, Blasco MA, Serrano M. "Super p53" mice exhibit enhanced DNA damage response, are tumor resistant and age normally. EMBO J. 2002 Nov 15;21(22):6225-35. Abstract

3. Matheu A, Pantoja C, Efeyan A, Criado LM, Martin-Caballero J, Flores JM, Klatt P, Serrano M. Increased gene dosage of Ink4a/Arf results in cancer resistance and normal aging. Genes Dev. 2004 Nov 15;18(22):2736-46. Epub 2004 Nov 1. Abstract

4. Jacobs WB, Kaplan DR, Miller FD. The p53 family in nervous system development and disease. J Neurochem. 2006 Jun;97(6):1571-84. Review. Abstract

5. Bae BI, Xu H, Igarashi S, Fujimuro M, Agrawal N, Taya Y, Hayward SD, Moran TH, Montell C, Ross CA, Snyder SH, Sawa A. p53 mediates cellular dysfunction and behavioral abnormalities in Huntington's disease. Neuron. 2005 Jul 7;47(1):29-41. Abstract

6. Molofsky AV, Slutsky SG, Joseph NM, He S, Pardal R, Krishnamurthy J, Sharpless NE, Morrison SJ. Increasing p16INK4a expression decreases forebrain progenitors and neurogenesis during aging. Nature. 2006 Sep 28;443(7110):448-52. Epub 2006 Sep 6. Abstract

7. Janzen V, Forkert R, Fleming HE, Saito Y, Waring MT, Dombkowski DM, Cheng T, DePinho RA, Sharpless NE, Scadden DT. Stem-cell aging modified by the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p16INK4a. Nature. 2006 Sep 28;443(7110):421-6. Epub 2006 Sep 6. Abstract

8. Molofsky AV, He S, Bydon M, Morrison SJ, Pardal R. Bmi-1 promotes neural stem cell self-renewal and neural development but not mouse growth and survival by repressing the p16Ink4a and p19Arf senescence pathways. Genes Dev. 2005 Jun 15;19(12):1432-7. Abstract

9. Molofsky AV, Pardal R, Iwashita T, Park IK, Clarke MF, Morrison SJ. Bmi-1 dependence distinguishes neural stem cell self-renewal from progenitor proliferation. Nature. 2003 Oct 30;425(6961):962-7. Epub 2003 Oct 22. Abstract

10. Campisi J. Senescent cells, tumor suppression, and organismal aging: good citizens, bad neighbors. Cell. 2005 Feb 25;120(4):513-22. Review. Abstract

11. Tyner SD, Venkatachalam S, Choi J, Jones S, Ghebranious N, Igelmann H, Lu X, Soron G, Cooper B, Brayton C, Hee Park S, Thompson T, Karsenty G, Bradley A, Donehower LA. p53 mutant mice that display early aging-associated phenotypes. Nature. 2002 Jan 3;415(6867):45-53. Abstract

12. Maier B, Gluba W, Bernier B, Turner T, Mohammad K, Guise T, Sutherland A, Thorner M, Scrable H. Modulation of mammalian life span by the short isoform of p53. Genes Dev. 2004 Feb 1;18(3):306-19. Abstract

13. Lu, K. P., and X. Z. Zhou. 2007. The prolyl isomerase Pin1: a pivotal new twist in phosphorylation signalling and human disease. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol (in press).

14. Liou YC, Ryo A, Huang HK, Lu PJ, Bronson R, Fujimori F, Uchida T, Hunter T, Lu KP. Loss of Pin1 function in the mouse causes phenotypes resembling cyclin D1-null phenotypes. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2002 Feb 5;99(3):1335-40. Epub 2002 Jan 22. Abstract

15. Liou YC, Sun A, Ryo A, Zhou XZ, Yu ZX, Huang HK, Uchida T, Bronson R, Bing G, Li X, Hunter T, Lu KP. Role of the prolyl isomerase Pin1 in protecting against age-dependent neurodegeneration. Nature. 2003 Jul 31;424(6948):556-61. Abstract

16. Pastorino L, Sun A, Lu PJ, Zhou XZ, Balastik M, Finn G, Wulf G, Lim J, Li SH, Li X, Xia W, Nicholson LK, Lu KP. The prolyl isomerase Pin1 regulates amyloid precursor protein processing and amyloid-beta production. Nature. 2006 Mar 23;440(7083):528-34. Erratum in: Nature. 2007 Mar 15;446(7133):342. Abstract

17. Wulf G, Garg P, Liou YC, Iglehart D, Lu KP. Modeling breast cancer in vivo and ex vivo reveals an essential role of Pin1 in tumorigenesis. EMBO J. 2004 Aug 18;23(16):3397-407. Epub 2004 Jul 15. Abstract

18. Takahashi K, Akiyama H, Shimazaki K, Uchida C, Akiyama-Okunuki H, Tomita M, Fukumoto M, Uchida T. Ablation of a peptidyl prolyl isomerase Pin1 from p53-null mice accelerated thymic hyperplasia by increasing the level of the intracellular form of Notch1. Oncogene. 2007 May 31;26(26):3835-45. Epub 2006 Dec 11. Abstract

19. Wulf GM, Liou YC, Ryo A, Lee SW, Lu KP. Role of Pin1 in the regulation of p53 stability and p21 transactivation, and cell cycle checkpoints in response to DNA damage. J Biol Chem. 2002 Dec 13;277(50):47976-9. Epub 2002 Oct 17. Abstract

20. Zheng H, You H, Zhou XZ, Murray SA, Uchida T, Wulf G, Gu L, Tang X, Lu KP, Xiao ZX. The prolyl isomerase Pin1 is a regulator of p53 in genotoxic response. Nature. 2002 Oct 24;419(6909):849-53. Epub 2002 Oct 2. Erratum in: Nature 2002 Nov 28;420(6914):445. Abstract

21. Zacchi P, Gostissa M, Uchida T, Salvagno C, Avolio F, Volinia S, Ronai Z, Blandino G, Schneider C, Del Sal G. The prolyl isomerase Pin1 reveals a mechanism to control p53 functions after genotoxic insults. Nature. 2002 Oct 24;419(6909):853-7. Epub 2002 Oct 2. Abstract

View all comments by Kun Ping Lu

The paper by Matheu and colleagues very interestingly documents that in mice, overexpression of p53 and Arf (a p53 stabilizer) triggers cancer resistance and decreases age-associated damage. Therefore, the study gives support to the idea that the control of p53 could be central in aging and provides a rationale to the unexplained observation that long lifetime is apparently associated to increased cancer resistance.

This very interesting and...  Read more

The paper by Matheu and colleagues very interestingly documents that in mice, overexpression of p53 and Arf (a p53 stabilizer) triggers cancer resistance and decreases age-associated damage. Therefore, the study gives support to the idea that the control of p53 could be central in aging and provides a rationale to the unexplained observation that long lifetime is apparently associated to increased cancer resistance.

This very interesting and well-performed study raises a few questions. Particularly striking is the observation that the coexpression of both Arf and p53 slightly increases the median lifespan (by 16 percent) but that the shapes of the two survival/age curves are different (see Fig. 2a,b). Although the Arf/p53 mice begin to die later than wild-type mice, the decay in survival seems accelerated for the former mice and finally, both curves gather to give 100 percent mortality at about 150 weeks. In other words, there is not a subset of Arf/p53 mice which survives the group of wild-type mice. Whether the cooperative function of Arf and p53 is efficient at early stages of “old age” but remains ineffective at later stages is a matter of reflection.

Has the work by Matheu implications for the understanding of neurodegenerative diseases? In Parkinson disease-affected brains, an increased p53-dependent cell death has been well documented. In both Parkinson and Alzheimer diseases, proteins responsible for familial cases, such as presenilins or α-synuclein, control p53-dependent cell death, and this function is increased by pathogenic mutations. Even if the demonstration that exacerbated p53-dependent apoptosis is causal in early death observed in genetic cases of AD or PD remains to be established, increased p53 expression accompanying early death would appear paradoxical with respect to Matheu’s work indicating that p53 overexpression triggers enhanced longevity. Close examination of data gives simple explanations. Thus, Matheu and colleagues show that the p53 or Arf overexpression alone did not mimic the phenotype triggered by coexpression of the two protein partners. No data are yet available concerning the levels of Arf in AD or PD brains and whether decreased levels of Arf could account for altered p53-dependent control of the longevity bestowed by p53. It should be noted that if this is the case, such alteration should be topologically restricted to cerebral areas lesioned in these pathologies (which are sometimes very narrow) in contrast to more widely distributed brain zones affected during normal aging. It is therefore more likely that the very nicely documented functional collaboration between Arf and p53 in the control of lifespan is not a central alteration responsible for neurodegenerative diseases associated with exacerbated apoptotic cell death.

View all comments by Frédéric Checler