(ORDO NEWS) — Stem cell scientists from Cambridge have published a paper that explains how mutations that occur over a lifetime affect the aging of the human body.
All life in the body there are constant processes of cell division. And with each division, the length of telomeres, the proteins at the ends of genes, is reduced. In some cases, there are changes in DNA that come to the manifestation of cellular mutations.
In studying the aging process, geneticists examined samples of blood cells from people of all ages – from children to the elderly, and sequenced the thousands of genes contained in them.
It turned out that certain mutations, which are called “driver”, accumulate in older people. These mutations are capable of being repeatedly transmitted, the cells actually create their own clones.
In children, the bone marrow produces normal blood cells, only single mutations are possible in them, such a cell does not multiply further and dies.
“Factors such as chronic inflammation, smoking, infections and chemotherapy may cause early development of clones with driver mutations,” says one of the co-authors of the study.
But only harmful factors cannot explain such a difference, which sharply arises after 65 years. We need to continue research to understand why blood cells significantly lose quality by old age, and whether this process can be reversed.
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