Comparative Analysis of Sex-Specific Aging

TL;DR

This paper explores how aging differs between sexes across various species to understand the biological and evolutionary mechanisms behind these differences.

Contribution

The study introduces a cross-species comparative framework to investigate sex-specific aging patterns and their underlying mechanisms.

Findings

Sex-specific aging patterns vary across species, with no consistent trend of one sex living longer.

Common methodologies enable comparative transcriptomic analyses across diverse organisms.

The study highlights the importance of integrating genomics and physiology to understand sex-specific aging.

Abstract

Women and men show many differences in how they age, evident for example in the longer average lifespan seen in women. Sex-specific aging also occurs in many animal species. However, females do not always live longer. In some species males live longer than females, and in some species, there are no differences in lifespan between females and males despite other sex differences in aging. The Integration Initiative: Sex, Aging, Genomics, and Evolution (IISAGE) brings together researchers working in diverse species to exploit this naturally occurring variation in sex-specific patterns of aging to gain insights into the mechanistic basis of sex-specific aging and their evolution. The IISAGE team utilizes organismal, physiological, and genomics measures from various Drosophila species, moths and butterflies, fishes, geckos, turtles, snakes, bats, and mice. Using common methodologies allows us to carry out comparative studies across these diverse species. We present the results from several studies, including comparative transcriptomic analyses.