Abstract
The purpose of this article is to provide students and researchers entering the field of aging studies with an introduction to the evolutionary theories of aging, as well as to orient them in the abundant modern scientific literature on evolutionary gerontology. The following three major evolutionary theories of aging are discussed: 1) the theory of programmed death suggested by August Weismann, 2) the mutation accumulation theory of aging suggested by Peter Medawar, and 3) the antagonistic pleiotropy theory of aging suggested by George Williams. We also discuss a special case of the antagonistic pleiotropy theory, the disposable soma theory developed by Tom Kirkwood and Robin Holliday. The theories are compared with each other as well as with recent experimental findings. At present the most viable evolutionary theories are the mutation accumulation theory and the antagonistic pleiotropy theory; these theories are not mutually exclusive, and they both may become a part of a future unifying theory of aging.Evolutionary theories of aging are useful because they open new oppor-tunities for further research by suggesting testable predictions, but they have also been harmful in the past when they were used to impose limitations on aging studies. At this time, the evolutionary theories of aging are not ultimate completed theories, but rather a set of ideas that themselves require further elaboration and validation. This theoretical review article is written for a wide readership.
Highlights
There is a growing interest in the topic of aging and in the search for a general theory that can explain what aging is and why and how it happens
While working on this article, we found that the scientific literature on evolutionary gerontology should be handled with great care because the significance of some publications[27,28] could only be understood in the context of related studies made by other researchers[14,29,30,31,32]
The hypothesis was put forward that this cell growth arrest is beneficial for organism survival because it protects against cancer[65,66]
Summary
Evolutionary theories of aging are useful because they open new opportunities for further research by suggesting testable predictions, but they have been harmful in the past when they were used to impose limitations on aging studies. At this time, the evolutionary theories of aging are not ultimate completed theories, but rather a set of ideas that themselves require further elaboration and validation. The evolutionary theories of aging are not ultimate completed theories, but rather a set of ideas that themselves require further elaboration and validation This theoretical review article is written for a wide readership. DOMAINS: aging, reproduction, biomathematics and statistical genetics, genetics (evolutionary), genetics (fly), genetics (fly), genetics (man), genetics (mouse), genetics (worms), cell and tissue culture, cell biology, cell death, cancer, development
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