Age related disorders in DNA were restored in mice
Amazing findings from studies on ageing and the epigenome on mice may alter how we see and manage age-related disorders in humans. Dr Morgen Levine spoke about the outstanding outcomes she and a team that included Dr David Sinclair achieved when they were able to restore mice’ vision.
Epi is derived from the Greek word epi which literally means above the genome. The epigenome consists of chemical compounds that modify, or mark, the genome in a way that tells it what to do, where to do, when to do it.
In that study, which was reported in the journal Nature, older mice had their more tightly wound optic nerves smashed, rendering them blind. Then, by signalling the underlying DNA & proteins and repairing what had been believed to be irreparably damaged cells.
They had an experiment with old twin mice that are same in DNA and got a success to make one of them young with gene technology that restores DNA damages.
Scientists were able to restore the mice’s vision by combining 3 of 4 Yamanaka cellular reprogramming factors. This was a stunning outcome since it brought back to the health a damaged organ that was essentially a portion of the brain.
https://www.science.org/content/article/two-research-teams-reverse-signs-aging-mice
When asked Dr Levine said about the next phase of her investigation, that it may involve a more complicated organ, like a mouse liver.
However, they continued. Sinclair presented the results of their ability to age a complete mouse in the January 2023 edition of Cell. To tell the epigenome to make the underlying mouse DNA act much older, in other words.
They were also able to to perform the opposite, bringing the cells and organs of an older mouse to those of a younger animal via signalling the epigenome. Different cells have different epigenetic marks.
Diseases connected to ageing are the result of epigenome errors
This is a very impressive accomplishment that seems to support Sinclair’s idea that all of our cells contain a perfect copy of our DNA and that ageing and the diseases connected to ageing are the result of epigenome errors.
Ih these errors are fixed, the cell can be returned to its previous state rather than becoming a blank stem cell. Is getting older merely a string of mistake that can be fixed?
This concept is referred to as the information theory of ageing. According to Sinclair, ageing is caused by cells losing information rather than merely accumulating DNA damage.
This calls into question what it means to age, that’s a paradigm change in how to think about ageing. Is it only a person with an age-related illness someone whose system has to be restarted, much to how a software reboot will bring back a computer’s hardware’s functionality?
Transition from medicine of repair to medicine of restoration
Of course, there are many obstacles to overcome before dong it on humans. On that note, Sinclair and colleagues are now working with primates. If things continue in this direction, we’ll examine the transition from medicine of repair to medicine of restoration.
Definitely this will spark philosophical discussions about what it meant to age and whether it would be desirable to have the option to restart time at pleasure.
It’s a fresh perspective on medicine. Sinclair says we conceive of the ageing processes and illnesses as irreversible. There is a myth that you need to generate new nerves the current cells are just not working. therefore rebooting them fixes the problem. It’s a fresh perspective on medicine.
Given that gene therapy may be administered directly into the eye, disorders of the eye are expected to be the first to be targeted for near-term human application.
This also opens up fresh directions for age research. For instance, in the lab, human tissue in a dish may be instructed to age more quickly or more slowly, giving researchers the chance to examine how different medical interventions affect ageing.
Since people live very long lives and the ageing process is influenced by an infinite number of behavioural and environmental events, studying ageing in humans is extremely challenging.
How should this new research influence what we do as everyday people? We’ve been advised repeatedly by Dr Mike Roizen of the Cleveland Clinic that now is the time to concentrate on taking care of our bodies.
Because we want to be fit enough to benefit from these new technologies when they are ultimately available. Most of us are afraid about not ageing well rather than really becoming older.
Source: science
