A Japanese longevity variant sits inside MOTS-c

Researchers at Juntendo University and Keio University in Japan, with colleagues in Madrid, looked at a natural variant called m.1382A>C that swaps one amino acid in MOTS-c, and asked whether it could help explain Japan's exceptional longevity.

Earlier genetic work by members of the team had linked the variant, and the mitochondrial lineage D4b2 that carries it, to exceptional longevity in Japanese people. In this peer-reviewed paper, they showed that it changes one amino acid in MOTS-c, and two prediction tools scored that change as large enough to alter how the peptide works.

The paper reported no new measurements of its own. It put forward a hypothesis built on an earlier association and on computer predictions, and it did not show that the variant itself extends human life. Whether the altered peptide behaves differently in living tissue was left for later experiments to test.

A one-letter change, offered as a clue.