We told the world that we could give yeast a Werner-like syndrome, causing exploded nucleoli.18 We described the ways in which mutants of SGS1, those we’d plagued with the yeast equivalent to the Werner syndrome mutation, accumulated ERCs more rapidly, leading to premature aging and a shortened lifespan.19 Crucially, by demonstrating that if you add an ERC to young cells they age prematurely, we had crucial evidence that ERCs don’t just happen during aging, they cause it. And by artificially breaking the DNA in the cell and watching the cellular response, we showed why sirtuins move—to help
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