Ageing: Longevity hits a roadblock.

Increased expression of sirtuin proteins has been shown to enhance lifespan in several organisms. New data indicate that some of the reported effects of the increased expression of sirtuin proteins - a class of proteins that possess either histone deacetylase or mono-ribosyltransferase activity and regulate as such important biological pathways in bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes - may have been due to confounding factors in experimental design. Nature publishes a commentary by Johan Auwerx and Carles Canto (LISP - Laboratory of Integrative Systems Physiology ) on the high-profile paper by David Gems and colleagues, who contest the lifespan extension by SIRT1 overexpression. David B. Lombard, Scott D. Pletcher, Carles Cantó & Johan Auwerx, Nature 477, 410-411, doi:10.1038/477410a (2011)