Identification and Analysis of Age-Invariant Proteins during Aging in Caenorhabditis elegans

Aging is characterized by a progressive decline in organismal fitness and function and is accompanied by loss of proteostasis, the maintenance of a balanced and functional proteome. Although many proteins change in abundance during aging, a subset remains relatively invariant. The contribution of these age-invariant proteins to proteostasis and aging remains unclear. To identify such proteins, we performed a comparative analysis of age-resolved proteomic datasets from wild-type, short-lived, and long-lived mutant C. elegans . Age-invariant proteins were enriched in biosynthetic processes, gene expression, and mRNA metabolism and were predominantly associated with fundamental cellular components. We further analyzed RNA-seq data from wild-type C. elegans and identified transcripts that remained invariant throughout the lifespan or after day 5. Eighty-five genes showed invariant abundance at both RNA and protein levels. Our findings identify a conserved set of age-invariant proteins across strains with distinct lifespans and suggest that validated age-invariant genes may serve as reference controls for biochemical experiments and facilitate the identification of age-associated biomarkers.