User:Caston/BlogEntry: 2009 June 15 06:36:10 UTC

Hello and welcome to the second blog entry.

I would like to write about some of my plans for this project.

I'm a member of imminst and very active on the forums there. I also read ouroboros and bacteriality.com

The strategy I am working on to intervene in the aging process mainly considers that most aging is caused by intra-cellular bacteria, viruses, fungus and protozoa.

Sites like ouroboros appear to research the biology of aging but are more interested in the perspective what metabolic tweaks can be made.

A recent article on ouroboros "Unfolding the role of the hypoxic response in aging" Writes about the TOR pathway: http://ouroboros.wordpress.com/2009/06/11/unfolding-the-role-of-the-hypoxic-response-in-aging/

It is some sort of nutrient sensing genetic pathway which controls a lot of functions in the cell. The article suggests that increased TOR function is associated with decreased lifespan. For instance TOR function interferes with stem cell function.

This made be interested in not only autophagy as a cellular defence mechanism against intracellular bacteria but also the CVT pathway and biogenisis. I actually need to find out what the CVT pathway is. There is also peroxophagy whereby peroxosomes are degraded. Peroxosmes are oraganelles that break down free radical e.g. hydrogen peroxide with enzymes like catalse.

So we want healthy biogenesis in the cell as well as efficient means of recycling. We want enough organelles like peroxosomes to break down free radicals and we want to purge peroxosomes that aren't doing what they are supposed to.

We also want to upgrade autophagy to be able to kill pathogenic bacteria and viruses.

Another thing I'd like to look at is stem cell fusion. Do the various stem cell niches fuse with each other?

If so this would be a good way to keep the niches in good working order.

Here is an article about the CVT pathway and autophagy. Atg23 is essential for the Cvt pathway and efficient autophagy but not pexophagy http://www.jbc.org/cgi/content/abstract/M309238200v1