title: Come one, come all.
abstract: Aging is a complex process that involves the gradual functional decline of many different tissues and cells. Gene expression microarray analysis provides a comprehensive view of the gene expression signature associated with age and is particularly valuable for understanding the molecular mechanisms that contribute to the aging process. However, because of the stochastic nature of the aging process, animals of the same chronological age often manifest great physiological differences. Therefore, profiling the gene expression pattern of a large population of aging animals risks either exaggerating or masking the changes in gene expression that correspond to physiological aging. In a recent paper, Golden and Melov surveyed the gene expression profiles of individual aging Caenorhabditis elegans, hoping to circumvent the problem of variability among worms of the same chronological age. This initial analysis of age-dependent gene expression in individual aging worms is an important step toward deciphering the molecular basis of physiological aging.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14850, USA. SSL29@cornell.edu
authors.forename: Siu Sylvia
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Lee
mesh_terms: D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology; D000818:Animals; D017173:Caenorhabditis elegans; D029742:Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins; D016922:Cellular Senescence / Q000235:genetics*; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis; D011972:Receptor, Insulin
chemical_list: D029742:Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins; C107483:DAF-2 protein, C elegans; D011972:Receptor, Insulin