One shot of kidney protein activated monkey brains

Klotho, the ancient Greek goddess of fate, is responsible for spinning the threads of life. In humans, a protein of the same name may be able to bring life back to aging brains.

and study Published today in the journal Nature Aging, researchers at Yale University and the University of California, San Francisco, found that a single injection of klotho protein produced modest improvements in cognitive function in aged monkeys. The effect was found to persist for two weeks. The authors believe that this protein offers a promising tool for studying rejuvenation of brain function in the elderly.

“Cognitive decline due to aging is one of the most pressing biomedical problems for which there are no truly effective drugs,” said Dena Duval, professor of neurology at UCSF and lead author of the study. says Mr. “It became important to test this in brains like ours,” she says, after finding, by chance, in her previous study that klotho boosts cognition in mice.

Produced by the kidneys, Klotho circulates in the blood and is associated with health and longevity. Orson Moe, a nephrologist and professor of internal medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, describes the kidneys as housekeepers who help regulate the kidneys and metabolism. “It protects us and keeps us healthy,” he says.

The protein was first discovered in 1997 by Makoto Kuroo, a pathologist at the National Institute of Neuroscience in Tokyo. He has demonstrated that mice lacking Klotho suffer from what he calls a disease. “Syndrome similar to human aging” They had early-onset heart disease, cancer, cognitive decline, and organ failure.Kuroo later discovers that it is inhabited by rats that produce more Klotho 20-30% longer than normal level.

For people, eating more protein appears to have health benefits. Although klotho levels naturally decrease with age, some people have higher klotho levels than others.and 2014 paperDuvall and colleagues studied more than 700 participants aged 52 to 85. People with higher levels of protein (about one in five people studied) performed better on tests of thinking and memory skills, such as drawing the images they remembered and naming colors. The words are displayed in different colors.

For that study in mice, the team also engineered mice to have higher than normal levels of protein. These mice performed better than normal mice in the maze test.

In the current study, Duvall and co-authors wanted to see if Klotho had the same effects on monkeys, which are often used as human substitutes because of their genetic similarity. As people age, their working memory (the ability to keep things in their minds, such as phone numbers) declines. Duvall’s research team tested the working memory capacity of 18 rhesus monkeys, roughly the age of 65 in humans. Each subject was required to remember the location of hidden treats within a number of compartments. This is the popular lab test that researchers chose because it relies on working memory and doesn’t get easier over time.

Each monkey was then given a single low dose of Klotho under the skin to raise the protein levels to those normally present in animals at birth. After four hours, the researchers divided the monkeys into 20 trials to complete a food-finding task, after which the team retested them over the next two weeks. Overall, the animals made more correct choices than before they received the injection. The research team tested monkeys with two versions of the task. An easy version with fewer compartments to choose from, and a more difficult version with more compartments to choose from. According to Duvall, Kroto improved performance on easy tasks by about 6 percent and on harder tasks by about 20 percent.

“This is very encouraging,” says Moe, who was not involved in the new study.

The researchers let the monkeys do this task several times over a two-week period, and found that even though klotho was broken down in the body within a few days after injection, the cognitive-enhancing effects persisted throughout. “The fact that a single dose lasts for two weeks sounds great, but we don’t know at this time if repeated doses will work again,” said Eric, CEO of the Buck Aging Institute.・Bardin says: He is not involved in research.

Indeed, previous studies using mice, both low and high doses of klotho enhanced cognition and helped perform better in some maze tasks that challenge learning and memory. But when Duvall’s team gave monkeys doses of 10, 20, and 30 micrograms per kilogram of body weight, the effect plateaued at the 10 microgram dose. This sets an important flag for researchers, as they are considering testing Klotho injections on humans one day. As for dosage, “more isn’t always better,” says Verdin.