Charlotte Researcher Investigating Process That Could Help Extend Lifespan
UNC Charlotte researcher Patricija van Oosten-Hawle, an assistant professor of biological sciences, is investigating how a particular reaction in the human gut is triggering a process that could help prolong tissue health and extend lifespan.
“The gastrointestinal tract is a major signaling system within humans, and it plays an important role in our overall health,” said van Oosten-Hawle. She recently received a $1.9 million grant from the National Institute on Aging to better understand the beneficial role of enteroendocrine (gut) cells.
“Under mild stress, certain signals are sent from the gut to other tissues that influences the health of other cell types and tissues, such as muscles,” van Oosten-Hawle explained. “These ‘stress’ signals being secreted by the gut are recognized by cells in the muscle. That process, in turn, triggers muscle cells to upregulate components for cellular protein quality control to maintain protein homeostasis in the muscle, which affects the entire organism.”
Protein homeostasis, or proteostasis, is a type of equilibrium that maintains cellular function and health. When we age, this equilibrium collapses in multiple organs. Proteins misfold or aggregate leading to cellular toxicity and decay, which is often linked with age-associated degenerative diseases. Examples include sarcopenia or muscle atrophy; metabolic disorders, including diabetes; or dementia in the form of Alzheimer’s or Huntington’s diseases.
“As we age, our muscle mass decreases. Stronger muscles will enable us to age more gracefully,” said van Oosten-Hawle. “My research aims to extend people’s quality of life, so we stay healthier longer.”
Signals produced by the nervous system, such as hormones and neuropeptides, have been studied extensively for their role in maintaining cell health unlike gut stress-induced signaling.
As a postdoctoral researcher, van Oosten-Hawle discovered how the signaling molecules within the gut respond to modulating the chaperone protein Hsp90 to keep cells fully functional.
“We induce mild stress in the gut by changing the expression of this chaperone protein and study the resulting effects in other tissues. The mild stress induced in the gut triggers damage control responses that boost proteostasis. Surprisingly, we found that these responses are not only activated within gut cells but that a type of stress response could be activated remotely in muscle cells by signals from the gut. In effect, this is like the gut serving as a preliminary alert system, notifying muscle cells of imminent threats so they can heighten their defenses beforehand. If we can learn how this can be modulated genetically or chemically, then it could lead to medical interventions that result in maintaining cellular health for longer as we age,” noted van Oosten-Hawle.