Transdisciplinary approach in free radical theory of ageing. Contribution of Nikolay M. Emanuel and his scientific school to gerontology

Abstract

The work is aimed to review the results of scientific studies of the effect of antioxidants-geroprotectors on the aging of experimental animals and the replicative aging of human diploid cells, carried out in the Department of Kinetics of Chemical and Biological Processes «KHIMBIO» of the Institute of Chemical Physics of the USSR Academy of Sciences under the leadership of academician Nikolay Markovich Emanuel in the 1960-1980s after pioneer work by D.Harman. By N.M.Emanuel and colleagues, it was established a previously unknown phenomenon of radical interaction of inhibitors in the oxidation of organic substances, which consists in the regeneration of a more effective inhibitor due to the transfer of a hydrogen atom to its free radical from a molecule of a less effective inhibitor. Antioxidants are polyvalent and can simultaneously affect many stages of aging processes. Data from the N.M.Emanuel scientific school on the increase of the average lifespan of mice by 25,3% and their maximum lifespan by 55,8% using antioxidants, discovered at the Institute of Chemical Physics of the USSR Academy of Sciences as a result of well-founded experimental and theoretical studies, became a powerful argument in favor of the free radical theory of aging in 1970-ties. This was further promoted by approaches based on the theory of reliability, the damage theory, and as well as an approach based on oxidative activation of the Nrf2 signaling pathway, which maintains the «nucleophilic tone» of protective oxidoreductases.