Study record
AAV-TERT gene therapy delays aging and increases mouse lifespan (Bernardes de Jesus et al., 2012)
Animal lifespan study
Two caveats govern every page on this site. (1) Telomere length is a contested aging biomarker — it is measured differently by different methods, varies between tissues, and "longer" is not straightforwardly "healthier"; changing a telomere-length or telomerase-activity number in a trial is not the same as slowing human aging. (2) Activating telomerase is not risk-free — telomerase expression is low in many differentiated normal tissues, while some normal proliferating cells can express it. Cancer can also use telomere maintenance; the included human records do not resolve long-term cancer risk from pharmacological activation. Tellingly, the FDA-approved telomerase inhibitor — imetelstat (RYTELO, 2024) — inhibits telomerase to treat cancer (lower-risk MDS), the opposite direction from the anti-aging "activation" narrative.
○ Evidence tier 5 — Animal lifespan study
Record verify: source publication identified; see evidence and limitations
| Design | Preclinical AAV-TERT gene-therapy lifespan study (mouse) |
| PMID | 22585399 |
| DOI | 10.1002/emmm.201200245 |
| Citation status | Original publication identity matched by title, author and DOI; relevant full-text sections, results and limitations examined 2026-10-14. |
Five-qualifier claim
| Species / population | Mice of both sexes on a >95%C57BL6 background, treated at420 or720days(called one-/two-year cohorts). At420days:14eGFP,21TERT,17catalytically inactiveTERT; at720days:14eGFP,23TERT. These are separate cohort denominators. |
| Exposure, route, schedule | One tail-vein injection of 2 × 10^12 viral genomes per mouse of AAV9 expressing mouse TERT (AAV9-mTERT). |
| Comparator / duration | AAV9-eGFP reporter-vector and untreated controls; survival follow-up with animals still alive censored in the Kaplan–Meier curves. The vector comparator was not an empty vector. |
| Endpoint / numeric result | Median lifespan increased ~24% when treated at 1 year of age and ~13% when treated at 2 years, with delayed aging markers and NO reported increase in cancer incidence. |
| What it did NOT establish | This experiment tested mice, with mouse telomere biology and small cohorts. It does not establish human lifespan, disease benefit or safety. No observed increase in mouse tumors at necropsy is not a quantified assurance of human cancer safety. |
Interventions
Primary reference
https://doi.org/10.1002/emmm.201200245
Each identifier above was confirmed against the primary record; the citation status names the source and the date. An identifier that could not be confirmed is left empty and named as such in the record, never filled in from a secondary source.