Aging is a complex process of progressive decline in overall physiological functions, resulting in a diminished capacity to resist impairment and damage and an increased susceptibility to diseases and risk of death.

It is hypothesized that mitochondrial dysfunction caused by over-accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) during cellular respiration is one of the inducers of aging.

Previous studies have demonstrated that serine exerted strong effects on the clearance of ROS in many kinds of rodent models including diquat-induced oxidative stress, high-fat-diet induced oxidative stress in the liver. However, no reports have studied the effects of serine administration on oxidative stress during aging.

Researchers in the Institute of Subtropical Agriculture (ISA) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences conducted a six-month experiment to explore the effects of serine administration on age-related oxidative stress and the signaling pathway involved.

In their study, various concentrations of L-serine dissolved in water were administered to 18-month-old C57BL/6J mice.

The researchers found that the administration of 0.5% (w/v) L-serine significantly prevented the increase of body weight caused by lipid over-accumulation. Mice administrated with L-serine also showed lower level of ROS and lower activity of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate oxidase in the hypothalamus, which indicated a lower oxidative stress.

Moreover, mice administrated with L-serine had higher expression of Silent Information Regulator 1 and lower expression of phosphorylated nuclear transcription factor-κB.

"Our findings suggest that L-serine has the potential to be used in the prevention of age-related obesity and oxidative stress," said ZHOU Xihong, a researcher in ISA.

The study entitled "Long-term L-serine administration reduces food intake and improves oxidative stress and Sirt1/NFκB signaling in the hypothalamus of aging mice" was published in Frontiers in Endocrinology.

The research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

Contact: Zhou Xihong

E-mail: xhzhou@isa.ac.cn

Institute of Subtropical Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Sciences