Premature Aging Gene Discovered

摘要

The gene that causes Werner's syndrome, which causes a rapid acceleration of aging, appears to encode a DMA-unwinding enzyme, and may provide clues to cancer and other diseases of old age. Just about everyone dreads the physical decline so often associated with aging. But people with the rare inherited disease known as Werner's syndrome have to face it far sooner than most. Unexpectedly, while they're still in their twenties, their hair grays, their skin loses its suppleness, and their vision cloudsfrom cataracts. Even worse, they get cancer, heart disease, and a host of other, diseases that usually don't strike until later in life. Most die before age 50. Aging experts have long wondered just what kind of molecular defect could cause such a striking acceleration of the aging process--and now they know.