Scientists have translated back the aging clock of adult stem cells
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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The scientists conducted a study that proved that the aging process of stem cells, which are responsible for restoring damaged tissues, can be reversed. Perhaps this discovery will give impetus to the development of new methods for treating diseases caused by natural aging of a person, such as restoring myocardium after a heart attack, treatment of arthritis and osteoporosis.
The modern understanding of the role of stem cells in aging is that the body is as old as its tissue-specific adult stem cells. Therefore, the discovery of molecules and the understanding of processes that allow adult stem cells to initiate self-renewal-multiply and then differentiate to rejuvenate worn-out tissue-can become the basis of regenerative medicine and the cure of many age-related diseases.
Scientists from the Institute for Aging Buck and the Georgia Institute of Technology conducted a study that explained the mechanisms that prevent the division of adult stem cells during their aging, that is, their biological clocks. Intervening in the activity of non-protein coding RNAs that originate from genome regions that were previously considered to be inactive "genomic debris," scientists have shown that the aging process of adult human stem cells can be reversed.
Scientists have suggested that age-related DNA damage in the genome of stem cells should differ from damage in the somatic cells of the body. It is known that in ordinary cells, telomeres are shortened during the aging process, the end sections of the chromosomes, unlike adult stem cells, in which telomere length does not change. Therefore, stem cells are based on another mechanism.
In the study, scientists compared two samples of adult stem cells: young stem cells that are capable of self-renewal and cells that have undergone a prolonged passage process, depleting the regenerative properties of cells. As a result, scientists found that most of the DNA damage in stem cells was concentrated in the genome region, known as "retrotransposons", which was previously considered to be dysfunctional and was referred to as "junk DNA."
Unlike young adult stem cells, which could suppress the activity of retrotransposons and repair DNA damage, old stem cells were unable to suppress this process, and in this connection the process of cell aging started.
After suppressing the accumulated toxic transcripts of retrotransposons, scientists were able not only to reverse the aging process of adult human stem cells, but, to the great surprise of the authors themselves, to return to an earlier phase of development by activating the pluripotency of stem cells, which plays a very important role in self-renewing embryonic stem cells .
In the near future, scientists want to find out the suitability of rejuvenated stem cells for clinical tissue regeneration.
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