2024-10-27 06:29:00
It has been at the center of endless debates and today it is used all over the world for medical abortion, and not only. But Ru486 (mifepristone) could experience a further new life: from abortion pill to hope for anti-aging treatments. The molecule has in fact come under the scrutiny of scientists who are working on strategies to promote a longer and healthier existence. The researchers – biologists from the University of Southern California Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences – discovered that it is able to extend lifespan by improving mitophagy, that is, the activity in cells that allows damaged mitochondria to be removed and recycled.
What the experts say
Not that it was anything new for mifepristone to have a new mission to accomplish. This drug is a regular in the so-called ‘repurposing’, the reuse of medicines for new indications. To date, experts explain, it is also used to treat Cushing’s disease and some types of cancer. Now it has captured attention for this new quality, revealed by a study on fruit flies.
This is a work in which John Tower, professor of biological sciences at USC Dornsife, and colleagues compared the effects of mifepristone with those of rapamycin, a drug that has already demonstrated the ability to increase the lifespan of a variety of animals. Published in the journal ‘Fly’, the work showed that both drugs, taken individually, extended the lifespan of fruit flies. But experts have noted that the combination of the two, however, offers no additional benefits, and instead slightly reduces lifespan, which suggests that both work through the same biological pathway.
The other effect of the pill
To understand how mifepristone and rapamycin might have this effect in terms of longevity, the researchers focused on mitophagy, a sort of cellular ‘cleaning’ process in which the mitochondriawhich are the energy powerhouses of the cell, when damaged or dysfunctional they are broken down and recycled. Impaired mitophagy has been linked to aging and age-related diseases, while an increased version of this process is thought to be a key factor in rapamycin’s ability to extend life.
In the study, the researchers were able to non-invasively measure mitophagy in fruit flies for the first time and found that mifepristone increased it to the same extent as rapamycin. “Noninvasive in vivo testing of mitophagy is novel, and our results suggest that improving mitochondrial health could be central because of the way both drugs extend lifespan,” Tower explains.
The fact that mifepristone, a drug already approved for various medical uses, can enhance mitophagy indicates its potential as an anti-aging treatment, highlights the expert, who in previous research has shown the anti-aging benefits of the molecule. Since it is already approved, among other things, reusing mifepristone for anti-aging clinical trials could be quicker, potentially accelerating the development of new therapies for longevity.
Future research will now need to determine whether the effects observed in fruit flies can be replicated in humansconcludes Tower. If so, mifepristone could provide a relatively accessible and safe way to reduce age-related cellular decline, paving the way for other therapies that improve mitochondrial health to support longevity.
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