Evaluation of the influence of fullerenol on aging and stress resistance using Caenorhabditis elegans

Fullerene derivatives have attracted extensive attention in biomedical fields and polyhydroxyl fullerene (fullerenol), a water-soluble fullerene derivative, is demonstrated as a powerful antioxidant. To further assess their anti-aging and anti-stress potential, we employed Caenorhabditis elegans (C elegans) as a model organism to evaluate the effects of fullerenol on the growth, development, behavior and anti-stress ability in vivo. The data show that fullerenol has no obviously toxic effect on nematodes and can delay C elegans aging progress under normal condition. Further studies demonstrate that fullerenol attenuates endogenous levels of reactive oxygen species and provides protection to C elegans under stress conditions by up-regulating stress-related genes in a DAF-16 depend manner and improving lifespan. In summary, our data suggest that fullerenol might be a safe and reasonable anti-aging candidate with great potential in vivo. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.