International team finds blood cell DNA stays steady and defines cellular age
Blood cells could hold the key to aging, according to new research out of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. In a study published in Aging Cell, researchers found human blood cells have an intrinsic clock that remains steady even after transplant. The researchers say the clock could control human aging and may underlie blood cancers.
Shigemi Matsuyama, DVM, PhD, cell biologist and associate professor of medicine at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, led an international team of researchers in studying the clock. The team measured cellular age in blood cells transplanted from healthy donors to leukemia patients, focusing on donor-recipient pairs of very different ages.
“This study is related to the fountain of youth,” Matsuyama said. “We found young blood cells stay young in older people. There was no accelerated aging of young blood cells in an older human body.” Matsuyama’s team found the other direction was also true—blood cells from adult donors transferred to a child stay older. The cells retained their intrinsic age nearly two decades after transplant.
Source: https://casemed.case...news_category=8