Israeli scientists say a key gene that helps African turquoise killifish grow quickly and reproduce early can also shorten their lives and increase their cancer risk, offering new evidence for a decades-old theory about aging.

The researchers worked with killifish because “they are a unique model that ages at an ultra-fast pace,” explained Prof. Itamar Harel of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “This fish is a vertebrate, just like us, but it naturally ages in four to six months.”

In a peer-reviewed study recently published in Nature Communications, Harel and colleagues used the CRISPR gene-editing tool to modify the VGLL3 gene, which is linked to puberty in humans, in African turquoise killifish.

“The same machinery that drives a cell to maturity in a young body hijacks the system to build a tumor in an old one,” Harel told The Times of Israel by telephone.

The researchers found that fish with altered VGLL3 exhibited increased stem cell proliferation, grew faster, and reached sexual maturity earlier, thereby enhancing their survival rate and reproduction abilities.

However, these advantages came at a great cost.

The alteration resulted in a 15 percent shorter lifespan in male fish and a 7% shorter lifespan for female fish. Moreover, there was a greater risk for melanoma-like tumors in both male and female fish.

The study was conducted with Dr. Eitan Moses and Dr. Marva Bergman, who are both involved in Harel’s lab at the Hebrew University, in collaboration with Prof. Nabieh Ayoub at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and Prof. Alexei A. Maklakov of the University of East Anglia.

It could pave the way for cancer prevention and research into how to separate the biological mechanisms of healthy growth from the diseases of aging.

“We are looking for mechanisms that do not necessarily extend our lifespan, but maybe extend our health span to give........

© The Times of Israel