An international research team has identified a fish gene that promotes rapid growth and earlier sexual maturation in males but also increases the risk of cancerand shortens lifespan. 

Evolution often favours traits that provide advantages early in life, even if they come at a cost to health in old age – a concept known as antagonistic pleiotropy. While this theory has long been proposed, scientists have not previously been able to identify the specific genes responsible. 

Researchers from the University of East Anglia, UK, and EARA members at Hebrew University and Technion, Israel, used CRISPR gene editing – a tool that can precisely alter DNA – to disrupt the vgll3, a gene associated with sexual maturation in humans and other species, in African turquoise killifish, a naturally short-lived fish widely used in ageing research.  

Male fish carrying the altered gene grew faster and reached sexual maturity earlier than unmodified fish. However, as they aged, they were more likely to develop tumours and had shorter lifespans. Female fish also showed reduced lifespan, although the effect was less pronounced. These effects were linked to increased cell activity in the intestine and reproductive organs, while affecting processes that repair DNA damage.  

“The same machinery that drives a cell to build a young body is hijacking the system to build a tumour in the old one. If we can understand this mechanism, we might finally learn how to decouple healthy growth from the disease of ageing,” said Itamar Harel, from the Hebrew University and co-lead author of the study published in Nature Communications. 

Because vgll3 is also found in humans, the findings could help researchers better understand how genes influence growth, ageing and age-related diseases.