Rides, thinning hair, bones and weak muscles - physical degeneration of aging is well known. But it is still a mystery why the body breaks down as it gets older. Now, using a hot new technology, researchers finally found the genes that make cells show their age.
DNA microarrays, also called DNA chips, fueled the excitement in the research community because they can test the activity of many genes immediately. In essence, microarrays are embedded size nail chips with known DNA extracts. To find out what is happening inside a cell, the researchers expose the chip fluorescently labeled genetic material that is sent inside the cell. Active genes leave telltale traces as they correspond with mapped locations on the chip.
A team led by Richard Lerner and Peter Schultz of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, used microarrays to analyze gene activity in fibroblasts, the cells that help form skin and connective tissue. They tested the cells of healthy people of different ages and also children with Hutchinson-Guilford progeria, a rare inherited disease that resembles an accelerated form of aging
The researchers found that expression of only 61 genes -. Out of a total of some 6300 tested - changed with age. Many of the same changes have also taken place in fibroblasts of patients with progeria, a finding indicating that these individuals are in fact age abnormally fast, they report to March 31 Science . Among the genes depending on the age, many are known to help cells divide, providing support to the idea that aging stops cell division.
It will take more work to confirm that these genes are differentially active in aging people, not just cell lines differently aged, says Leonard Guarente aging specialist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But Guarente said, "This is an extremely interesting piece of work." It is still a way to the beauty salon, however. Lerner said: "The Fountain of Youth here ... I do not think"
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