Evolution of ageing

@article{Kirkwood1977EvolutionOA,
  title={Evolution of ageing},
  author={Tom B. L. Kirkwood},
  journal={Nature},
  year={1977},
  volume={270},
  pages={301-304},
  url={https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:492012}
}
This work has shown that mortality may be due to an energy-saving strategy of reduced error regulation in somatic cells, which supports Orgel's ‘error catastrophe’ hypothesis and offers a new basis for the study of normal and abnormal ageing syndromes and of apparently immortal transformed cell lines.
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1,768 Citations

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13 References

Altered Enzymes in Ageing Human Fibroblasts

Observations support Orgel's “error catastrophe” theory of ageing by showing that the RNA base analogue 5-FU induces premature senescence, which is preceded by the appearance of altered enzyme.

The maintenance of the accuracy of protein synthesis and its relevance to ageing: a correction.

A simpler model is considered in which successive generations of the protein-synthetic apparatus are discrete and distinguishable, and it is deduced that the error frequency would increase exponentially.

Commitment to senescence: a model for the finite and infinite growth of diploid and transformed human fibroblasts in culture.

On the origin of the genetic code and the stability of the translation apparatus.

The stability of the translation apparatus.

The serial cultivation of human diploid cell strains.

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The specificity with which the genetic code is read in protein synthesis, and with which other highly specific biosynthetic reactions take place, can be increased above the level available from free…

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DNA polymerase activity, isolated from late and early passage cells of the diploid human fibroblast line, MRC-5, was compared and it was observed that the enzyme from late passage cells was more error-prone.

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