Stem Cell Derived Extracellular Vesicles Reduce Epigenetic Age in Mice

As a strategy, the measurement of epigenetic age to assess the outcome of therapy intended to slow or reverse aging has its issues. Since it remains unknown as to how near all of the epigenetic marks on the genome are caused by the underlying processes of aging, it is quite possible that any given epigenetic clock will underestimate or overestimate the effects of a given approach to therapy, based on the choice and weighting of epigenetic marks used in the clock. It is suspected that the existing clocks are strongly influenced by only some of the mechanisms of aging. Thus the assessment epigenetic age in a study of a potential treatment targeting aging should be considered exploratory at this time, a part of the ongoing and likely lengthy process of calibrating the clocks. It should be accompanied by a range of other measures of health and function. Today's open access paper, covering an extracellular vesicle based intervention, is an example of going about this in the right way, in which epigenetic age is only one of a number of measures of the impact of aging on the mice involved. The use of extracellular vesicles derived from cultured stem cells is a logical evolution of early stem cell therapies, in which the benefits are derived near entirely from the signaling produced by the transplanted cells. Delivery of vesicles is a logistically easier approach, with evidence suggesting that this can produce similar outcomes to stem cell therapies. Small extrac...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs