Ageing in the brain may be caused by a breakdown in protein production
The discovery that brain ageing may be driven by jammed-up protein factories could lead to better ways to help us stay sharp as we get older
By Michael Le Page
31 July 2025
A ribosome (centre) producing a protein (red) from mRNA. The dark purple strands represent transfer RNA, which are also involved in protein production
We may have discovered a fundamental cause of cellular ageing that underlies many other ageing processes in cells.
A study of the brains of freshwater fish called killifish has shown that, as they age, the protein-making factories in cells start jamming while making a key class of proteins, causing a vicious cycle of decline.
Read more
The supplement that really can improve your brain health
Advertisement
The discovery could lead to new ways to tackle brain ageing, says Alessandro Cellerino at the Leibniz Institute on Aging in Germany. “We are mostly talking about improving cognition or preventing cognitive decay, rather than increasing lifespan,” he says.
The recipes for making proteins are stored in DNA in our cells. When a protein is needed, copies of these recipes are transcribed into a kind of molecule called mRNA.
The mRNA copies are edited, or spliced, and sent to protein-making factories called ribosomes, which bind to the mRNA molecules and move along them, reading off the three-letter codons and translating them into a sequence of amino acids that make up the protein.
