title: Accumulation of insoluble protein and aging.
abstract: It is proposed that biological aging mainly depends on a deleterious accumulation of insoluble inert protein that has escaped physiological proteolytic degradation. Intracellularly, a three-dimensional network of polypeptide chains may exclude macromolecular structures and organelles from part of the cytosolic water. In this way vital intracellular transport mechanisms may be obstructed, providing a rationale to several observations linked to aging.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Biochemistry and Microbiology, University of Uppsala, Biomedical Center, Box 582, SE-751 23 Uppsala, Sweden. anund.hallen@swipnet.se
authors.forename: Anund
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hallén
mesh_terms: D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D031204:Caloric Restriction; D002875:Chromosomes / Q000378:metabolism; D022162:Cytoplasmic Vesicles / Q000378:metabolism; D003599:Cytoskeleton / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D008062:Lipofuscin / Q000378:metabolism; D008433:Mathematics; D008660:Metabolism; D011506:Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D012270:Ribosomes / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D008062:Lipofuscin; D011506:Proteins