RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Two phases of aging separated by the Smurf transition as a public path to death JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 028183 DO 10.1101/028183 A1 E. Dambroise A1 L. Monnier A1 L. Ruisheng A1 H. Aguilaniu A1 J-S Joly A1 H. Tricoire A1 M. Rera YR 2015 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/10/02/028183.abstract AB Aging’s most obvious characteristic is the time dependent increase of an individual’s probability to die. This lifelong process is accompanied by a large number of molecular and physiological changes. Although numerous genes involved in aging have been identified in the past decades its leading factors have yet to be determined. To identify the very processes driving aging we have developed in the past years an assay to identify physiologically old individuals in a synchronized population of Drosophila melanogaster. Those individuals show an age-dependent increase of intestinal permeability followed by a high risk of death. Here we show that this physiological marker of aging is conserved in 3 invertebrate species Drosophila mojavensis, Drosophila virilis, Caenorhabditis elegans and 1 vertebrate specie Danio rerio. Our findings suggest that intestinal barrier dysfunction may be an important event in the aging process conserved across a broad range of species, thus raising the possibility that it may also be the case in Homo sapiens.