A collective analysis of lifespan-extending compounds in diverse model organisms, and of species whose lifespan can be extended the most by the application of compounds

Research on aging and lifespan-extending compounds has been carried out using diverse model organisms, including yeast, worms, flies and mice. Many studies reported the identification of novel lifespan-extending compounds in different species, some of which may have the potential to translate to the clinic. However, studies collectively and comparatively analyzing all the data available in these studies are highly limited. Here, by using data from the DrugAge database, we first identified top compounds in terms of their effects on percent change in average lifespan of diverse organisms, collectively (n = 1728). We found that, when data from all organisms studied were combined for each compound, aspirin resulted in the highest percent increase in average lifespan (52.01%), followed by minocycline (27.30%), N-acetyl cysteine (17.93%), nordihydroguaiaretic acid (17.65%) and rapamycin (15.66%), in average. We showed that minocycline led to the highest percent increase in average lifespan among other compounds, in both Drosophila melanogaster (28.09%) and Caenorhabditis elegans (26.67%), followed by curcumin (11.29%) and gluconic acid (5.51%) for D. melanogaster and by metformin (26.56%), resveratrol (15.82%) and quercetin (9.58%) for C. elegans. Moreover, we found that top 5 species whose lifespan can be extended the most by compounds with lifespan-extending properties are Philodina acuticornis, Acheta domesticus, Aeolosoma viride, Mytilina brevispina and Saccharomyces cerevisiae (211.80%, 76%, 70.26%, 55.18% and 45.71% in average, respectively). This study provides novel insights on lifespan extension in model organisms, and highlights the importance of databases with high quality content curated by researchers from multiple resources, in aging research.

Automated summary

The research focused on aging and lifespan-extending compounds across different model organisms such as yeast, worms, flies and mice. The study identified aspirin as the compound with the highest percent increase in average lifespan when data from all organisms studied were combined, followed by minocycline, N-acetyl cysteine, nordihydroguaiaretic acid and rapamycin. Additionally, it was found that minocycline led to the highest percent increase in average lifespan among other compounds in fruit flies and nematodes.