A really interesting new preprint was published in August by Nicholas Stroustrup's lab in Barcelona, Spain. Declines in mRNA synthesis set the rate of organismal aging looks at the way an enzyme called RNA Polymerase II (RNAPII) changes as worms get older. This particular enzyme is used by a wide range of species to read DNA and create mRNA. That process is called transcription. The paper is worth reading. I have put a summary and analysis of this paper on Rapamycin News here What the paper basically says is that the amount of mRNA produced reduces as worms get older and this happens because of a reduction in the availability of RNAPII. It also says that the reason RNAPII availability reduces is because it is destroyed by the cell. A protein called ubiqutin is added to RNAPII to tell the cell to destroy the protein. RNAPII starts at the start of a gene and moves down it to read the gene and create mRNA. It is a bit like a copy typist. A cell needs an individual copy of RN...
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