| Popis: |
Sex differences in longevity and the aging phenotype are rampant if not ubiquitous. They are also highly variable and content dependent. That is, although there appears to be an overall female longevity bias in many species, that pattern has many exceptions. In virtually all of the best-studied species, with humans being a notable exception, longevity sex bias is context-dependent. To try to understand sex differences in aging, it is useful to consider the impact of mitochondria, which are exclusively inherited through the female lineage. Mitochondria are endosymbiotic bacteria that have given away most of their genes to the nucleus. Therefore, mitochondrial function depends on compatibility and coordination of the mitochondrial genome with the nuclear genome. The evolutionary success of mitochondrial genomes, specifically, will depend on how effectively they interact with female nuclear genomes, male nuclear genomes being evolutionary dead-ends for them. This talk will employ this logic to examine observations of sex differences in the aging phenotype. |
