Incorporating disordered proteins into biological age clocks

This video summarizes the paper “Adding intrinsically disordered proteins to biological ageing clocks” by Dorothee Dormann and Edward A. Lemke, Nature Cell Biology (2024), PubMed ID: 38783141. The authors propose that intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs), which gradually undergo misfolding and phase transitions during ageing, could serve as novel molecular indicators of biological age. Integrating IDP behaviour into existing omics-based ageing clocks may improve our ability to quantify cellular and organismal ageing. This approach reframes protein disorder and aggregation not merely as hallmarks of decline, but as measurable signatures of the ageing process.