title: Identification of amino acids in mitochondrially encoded proteins that correlate with lifespan.
abstract: Animals show a huge diversity in their lifespan that can vary from a few weeks to over a hundred years in vertebrates. Size is a key element in this variation and the positive correlation between size and maximum lifespan can be observed in each class of vertebrate. Some groups and species clearly stand out in this size-lifespan relationship and the ones with exceptionally long lifespan have been studied to understand the biological causes of their low aging rate. Among the potential explanations of animals' lifespan variations, mitochondria and mitochondrially encoded genes have drawn attention because of their importance in the aging process. To understand both the extent of lifespan variations and their dependence to genes and amino acid variations in mitochondrial genes and DNA (mtDNA), we analyze in a systematic way all 13 proteins encoded by mitochondria in all vertebrates for which we had information on weight, maximum lifespan and mtDNA sequence. This comparison allows us to visualize positions, and even specific amino acids, in these sequences that correlate with lifespan. With this approach, we draw a map of 356 amino acid residues, at 296 positions within the sequence, that correlate with longer or shorter lifespan. We also compared this map with the human mitochondrial polymorphism to determine its potential as a predictive tool.
authors.affiliation: INRA, UR 1077 Mathématique, Informatique et Génome, 78350 Jouy-en-Josas, France.
authors.forename: Mahendra
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mariadassou
authors.affiliation: INSERM Unit 1001, Université Paris-Descartes, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Faculté de Médecine Paris Descartes, 75014 Paris, France; NAOS group/Jean-Noël Thorel, 13855 Aix-en-Provence, France. Electronic address: francois-xavier.pellay@inserm.fr.
authors.forename: François-Xavier
authors.initials: FX
authors.lastname: Pellay
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D000375:Aging / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001835:Body Weight; D019295:Computational Biology; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000378:metabolism; D030541:Databases, Genetic; D006801:Humans; D008136:Longevity; D008928:Mitochondria / Q000378:metabolism*; D024101:Mitochondrial Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D010802:Phylogeny; D040901:Proteomics / Q000379:methods; D020539:Sequence Analysis, Protein
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial; D024101:Mitochondrial Proteins
keywords: Evolution; Lifespan; Longevity; Mitochondria; Mitochondrially-encoded protein; mtDNA