The secret of long life that lies in bat genes

• Autores: Colin Barras
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 2931, 2013, pág. 11
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Brandt's bat (Myotis brandtii) typically weighs 4 to 8 grams--about half the weight of a house mouse. At that weight, a well-established link between body mass and lifespan dictates that it should live no more than five years. Yet in 2005, biologists captured a Brandt's bat in Siberia 41 years after it had first been caught. Now, analysis of the species' genome suggests an explanation. Vadim Gladyshev at Harvard Medical School and his colleagues found key changes to genes in a hormonal system known as the "growth hormone/IGF1 axis". These changes aren't seen in other mammals except as rare mutations.