| RESEARCH |
A South Korean research group has structurally characterized and chemically synthesized a novel pheromone that postpones aging in worms. The finding could lead to drugs that control parasitic worms in animals and plants as well as to novel insights into aging and obesity in humans [Nature, 433, 541 (2005)]. When Caenorhabditis elegans worms find their environment crowded and inhospitable, they hibernate until food becomes available, effectively extending their life span. A team led by Young-Ki Paik of Yonsei University, in Seoul, has now completed a laborious, large-scale purification process to isolate the pheromone that induces such hibernation. Paik's team used mass spectrometry and NMR spectroscopy to determine the structure (shown) of the pheromone--dubbed daumone--and then designed a stereospecific, 10-step method to synthesize it. Both isolated and synthetic daumone induce the morphological changes that accompany worm hibernation. These results may shed light on the signaling pathway by which daumone induces hibernation, a pathway thought to be similar to those that lead to aging and obesity in humans. |
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