The DrugAge database of aging-related drugs

Aging Cell. 2017 Jun;16(3):594-597. doi: 10.1111/acel.12585. Epub 2017 Mar 16.

Abstract

Aging is a major worldwide medical challenge. Not surprisingly, identifying drugs and compounds that extend lifespan in model organisms is a growing research area. Here, we present DrugAge (http://genomics.senescence.info/drugs/), a curated database of lifespan-extending drugs and compounds. At the time of writing, DrugAge contains 1316 entries featuring 418 different compounds from studies across 27 model organisms, including worms, flies, yeast and mice. Data were manually curated from 324 publications. Using drug-gene interaction data, we also performed a functional enrichment analysis of targets of lifespan-extending drugs. Enriched terms include various functional categories related to glutathione and antioxidant activity, ion transport and metabolic processes. In addition, we found a modest but significant overlap between targets of lifespan-extending drugs and known aging-related genes, suggesting that some but not most aging-related pathways have been targeted pharmacologically in longevity studies. DrugAge is freely available online for the scientific community and will be an important resource for biogerontologists.

Keywords: bioinformatics; compound; functional genomics; lifespan; longevity; pharmacology.

MeSH terms

  • Aging / drug effects*
  • Aging / genetics
  • Aging / metabolism
  • Animals
  • Antioxidants / chemistry
  • Antioxidants / pharmacology*
  • Caenorhabditis elegans / drug effects
  • Caenorhabditis elegans / genetics
  • Caenorhabditis elegans / growth & development
  • Caenorhabditis elegans / metabolism
  • Computational Biology / methods
  • Databases, Pharmaceutical*
  • Drosophila melanogaster / drug effects
  • Drosophila melanogaster / genetics
  • Drosophila melanogaster / growth & development
  • Drosophila melanogaster / metabolism
  • Geriatrics / methods
  • Humans
  • Membrane Transport Modulators / chemistry
  • Membrane Transport Modulators / pharmacology*
  • Metabolic Networks and Pathways / drug effects*
  • Mice
  • Saccharomyces cerevisiae / drug effects
  • Saccharomyces cerevisiae / genetics
  • Saccharomyces cerevisiae / growth & development
  • Saccharomyces cerevisiae / metabolism
  • User-Computer Interface

Substances

  • Antioxidants
  • Membrane Transport Modulators