Mitochondrial DNA repeats constrain the life span of mammals

Mitochondrial DNA deletions, which are often flanked by repeats, are found in elderly organisms of many species. In this article, I describe the analysis of the mitochondrial genomes of 61 mammalian species and show that the number of the longer repeats constrains the typical life span. I also show...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inTrends in genetics Vol. 20; no. 5; pp. 226 - 229
Main Author Samuels, David C.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford Elsevier Ltd 01.05.2004
Elsevier Science
Subjects
Animals
Biological and medical sciences
DNA, Mitochondrial - genetics
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Gene Deletion
Genetics of eukaryotes. Biological and molecular evolution
Genome
Humans
Longevity
Mammals
Molecular and cellular biology
Mutation
Repetitive Sequences, Nucleic Acid
Time Factors
Genetics
Vertebrata
Mitochondrial DNA
Mammalia
Longevity
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Summary:Mitochondrial DNA deletions, which are often flanked by repeats, are found in elderly organisms of many species. In this article, I describe the analysis of the mitochondrial genomes of 61 mammalian species and show that the number of the longer repeats constrains the typical life span. I also show that the number of repeats that occur in randomly shuffled sequences is a rough lower limit to the number in the actual sequences. These two constraints imply a maximum life expectancy for mammals of 80–100 years.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-3
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ObjectType-Review-1
ISSN:0168-9525
DOI:10.1016/j.tig.2004.03.003