Metabolomics in aging research: aging markers from organs

Abstract

Metabolism plays an important role in regulating aging at several levels, and metabolic reprogramming is the main driving force of aging. Due to the different metabolic needs of different tissues, the change trend of metabolites during aging in different organs and the influence of different levels of metabolites on organ function are also different, which makes the relationship between the change of metabolite level and aging more complex. However, not all of these changes lead to aging. The development of metabonomics research has opened a door for people to understand the overall changes in the metabolic level in the aging process of organisms. The omics-based “aging clock” of organisms has been established at the level of gene, protein and epigenetic modifications, but there is still no systematic summary at the level of metabolism. Here, we reviewed the relevant research published in the last decade on aging and organ metabolomic changes, discussed several metabolites with high repetition rate, and explained their role in vivo, hoping to find a group of metabolites that can be used as metabolic markers of aging. This information should provide valuable information for future diagnosis or clinical intervention of aging and age-related diseases.