"Robert Karl Stonjek"  wrote in
message news:br6bvd$1bep$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org...
> Protein of life, protein of death
> The same enzyme regulates programmed cell death and
embryonic development
> By Andrea Rinaldi
>
> Complex, multicellular organisms must finely regulate
their inner
> environment to assure cells can thrive, but must also
initiate apoptosis
> (programmed cell death) when necessary. Apoptosis is
critical for normal
> development and tissue homeostasis, and aberrant apoptosis
can lead to
> cancer and neural degeneration. In a PNAS article
published online December
> 8, Jianhua Zhang and colleagues at the University of
Cincinnati College of
> Medicine pinpoint an enzyme that plays an important role
in both the
> regulation of normal apoptosis and embryogenesis in
mammals (PNAS,
> DOI:10.1073/pnas.2636393100, December 8, 2003).
>
> Zhang et al. investigated the in vivo function of
endonuclease G (EndoG), a
> mitochondrial protein encoded in the nucleus, previously
reported to be
> important for nuclear DNA fragmentation during apoptosis
and mitochondrial
> DNA replication. The authors studied the consequences of
EndoG deficiency in
> mice and observed that homozygous mutant embryos died
early during
> development and had lost normal morphology, while
heterozygous animals
> developed normally. Mitochondrial numbers were the same in
mutant and
> wildtype mice, suggesting that EndoG is not involved in
mitochondrial DNA
> replication. The authors also observed that EndoG mutant
cells subjected to
> apoptotic stimuli were more resistant to cell death than
wildtype control
> cells.
>
> Read the rest at The Scientis.com
> http://www.biomedcentral.com/news/20031209/02

Very interesting stuff! Even so, as much as I would like to
believe there is a magic bullet (or just several) for
life-extension--I'm starting to think that life is
pre-limited by the natural physical limits to growth (size
and height limited by gravity and many other natural factors
for ex.)

As long as we grow, albeit slowly in older ages, we remain
alive, when growth slows to a stop, the entire system loses
its "life-momentum" so to speak, and the system grinds to a
stop (for many trivial reasons that accumulate in dynamic
systems). Of course, I still hope I'm wrong.      ...tonyC

> Posted by
> Robert Karl Stonjek.
>
>
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