Nucleic Acids Research· 2026Q1
Neuronal DNA repair mediates systemic mitochondrial maintenance through acetylcholine signaling
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- 2026year
Short summary
Restricting DNA repair (NER) activity to neurons in C. elegans worms is sufficient to confer organism-wide resistance to DNA damage, comparable to whole-body repair.
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Key points
- Restricting nucleotide excision repair (NER) to neurons in C. elegans conferred significant organism-wide DNA damage resistance.
- Neuronal NER activity provided nearly the same level of DNA damage resistance as whole-body NER.
- This systemic effect is mediated by acetylcholine signaling originating from neurons.
- Neuronal acetylcholine signaling promotes the maintenance of mitochondrial activity throughout the organism.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
DNA repair defects such as nucleotide excision repair (NER) mutations can lead to progeroid syndromes characterized by growth retardation and accelerated aging with distinct tissue type specific pathologies. DNA-damage-induced dysfunction of specific cell types can impair the organism's overall function. It is unknown whether, in reverse, DNA repair in specific tissues can have non-cell-autonomous consequences on other tissues carrying DNA damage. To explore the organismal consequences of cell-type-specific DNA repair, we restricted NER activity to specific tissues and monitored consequences on organismal health in Caenorhabditis elegans. Unexpectedly, we observed that tissue-specific DNA repair is sufficient to improve overall DNA damage resistance. Strikingly, NER activity restricted to neurons only is sufficient to provide similar overall DNA damage resistance as whole-body NER in almost all tissues tested. We show that this systemic DNA damage resilience is mediated by neuronal acetylcholine signaling that promotes the maintenance of mitochondrial activity throughout the organism.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Nucleic Acids Research, 2026 · DOI ↗
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AgingBiochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology