Proximate Causes of Increased Transposon Expression with Age – Fight Aging!

Transposable elements are sequences in the genome capable of self-replication, increasing in activity with age due to dysregulation of epigenetic control and splicing processes. This activation leads to potential genomic damage as these elements insert copies of themselves haphazardly into the genome. Aging and senescence are marked by increased expression of transposons and introns, likely due to transcriptional defects such as readthrough and intron retention. Studies on aged human and mouse cells confirm the correlation between transposon expression and these transcriptional abnormalities. This research suggests that intron retention and transcriptional readthrough are key factors in the elevated expression of transposons during aging.