Plants and fungi metabolites as novel autophagy inducers and senescence inhibitors

Abstract

Premature aging can be partially explained by inefficient autophagy (the process of cellular self-digestion that recycles intracellular components) and premature senescence (cease of cellular division without cell death activation). Autophagy and senescence are among the basic biochemical pathways in plants and fungi suggesting that some of their metabolites have the potential to act as autophagy inducers (AI) and senescence inhibitors (SI) and to inhibit inflammation and human aging. Several compounds have already been identified: trehalose and resveratrol are natural compounds that act as AI; flavonoids found in fruit and vegetables (curcumin, quercetin, and fisetin) are among the first SI discovered so far. New AI/SI can be identified using various approaches like hypothesis-driven approach for screening receptor agonists using an in-silico library of thousands of natural compounds; cheminformatics studies of phytochemicals using docking and molecular dynamics simulation, structure similarities/mimicry in vitro, “blind” high throughput screening (HTS) of libraries of natural metabolites against relevant models, and more. This article aims to promote the use of plant and fungi novel resources to identify bioactive molecules relevant for healthy aging based on the knowledge that plants and fungi use autophagy and senescence mechanisms for their own survival and homeostasis. As autophagy and senescence are interconnected, how drugs targeting autophagy, senescence, or both could contribute to healthy aging in humans will be speculated.