Hibernation Slows Biological Aging in Bats, UMD-led Study Finds

The most typical bat in the USA, the large brown bat, boasts an unusually lengthy lifespan of as much as 19 years. A brand new research led by College of Maryland researchers identifies one of many secrets and techniques to this bat’s distinctive longevity: hibernation.

“Hibernators are inclined to live longer than migrators,” mentioned the research’s senior writer, UMD Biology Professor Gerald Wilkinson. “We knew that, however we didn’t know if we’d detect modifications in epigenetic age attributable to hibernation.”

The researchers decided that hibernating over one winter extends an enormous brown bat’s epigenetic clock—a organic marker of getting older—by three-quarters of a yr. The research, revealed in the present day within the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, additionally included scientists from McMaster College and the College of Waterloo, each in Ontario, Canada.

They analyzed small tissue samples taken from the wings of 20 massive brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) ranging in age from lower than 1 yr outdated to greater than 10 years outdated in the course of the winter after they hibernated and in the summertime after they had been lively.

The researchers measured modifications in DNA methylation—a organic course of related to gene regulation—between samples taken from the identical animal throughout lively and hibernating durations. They found that modifications in DNA methylation occurred at sure websites within the bat’s genome, and these websites seemed to be affecting metabolism throughout hibernation.

“It’s fairly clear that the websites that lower methylation within the winter are those that seem like having an lively impact,” Wilkinson mentioned. “Lots of the genes which can be nearest to them are identified to be concerned in regulating metabolism, in order that they presumably preserve metabolism down.”

A few of these genes are the identical ones that Wilkinson and fellow researchers recognized as “longevity genes” in a earlier research.

Learn the total information launch on the Faculty of Pc, Mathematical, and Pure Sciences web site.