Research On The Effect And Mechanism Of Metformin In Extending Lifespan

Metformin is the most widely used drug in the world to reduce the drug substance, and the main treatment for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. By using the C. elegans worm as a model system, we examined the effect of 20μm metformin 、40μm metformin、60μm metformin on the lifespan. Our results indicated that under oxidative stress, 40μm metformin could increace the mean lifespan by 26.4%, which could be attributed to its intracellular ROS accumulation elimination. Under heat stress, 40μm metformin could increace the mean lifespan by 28.9% which could be attributed to the increase of superoxide dismutase-3(sod-3) and heat shock protein-12.3(hsp-12.3) protein expression. Quantitative real-time PCR results also showed that the expression of daf-16,skn-1,ctl-2,ctl-1和 daf-2 were up-regulated in metformin-treated worms under oxidative and heat stress. We believe that these findings will provide new insights into the role of metformin.