How Yeast Can Inform Us about Healthy Aging

Yeasts are eukaryotes like us, and they have informed us about our cellular and molecular biology for many decades. They are unicellular and live with 6000 genes, carrying out many of the same processes that we do. Like us, yeast exhibit the same processes of aging, with telomere shortening, loss of mitochondrial function, reduced proteostasis, reduced robustness and stress. Some of these attributes are associated with aging and may not be the cause of aging. Therefore, it is important to consider attributes that clearly affect the fitness of cells. We have constructed yeast with a reporter of deleterious protein turnover. It involves the Alzheimer's amyloid beta peptide fused to a green fluorescent protein to aid its visualization in living cells. The use of this reporter enables high throughput assays to find compounds that can improve proteostasis in older cells. Compounds, like simvastatin, improve proteostasis and improve health outcomes inageing. Stress and biochemicals may decrease health and lifespan. Yeast can be used to study aging, drugs and stress, and to search for compounds that improve robustness in cells affected by drugs or stress.