Arguing for Extracellular Vesicles to Mediate Beneficial Effects of Parabiosis

Cells communicate with one another constantly, and a large portion of that communication is not carried by individual secreted molecules, though there are certainly a lot of those, but rather takes the form of small membrane-bound packages of diverse molecules known as extracellular vesicles. Cells generate and secrete extracellular vesicles of various sizes, and other cells ingest them. Two important areas of active research into cell signaling are the way in which young tissue can restore the function of old cells, and the way in which senescent cells change the activity of surrounding cells for the worse. In both cases, extracellular vesicles are important in this process of communication and influence. There is a substantial faction in the research community focused on potentially beneficial effects that derive from young blood, emerging from the study of heterochronic parabiosis in which the circulatory systems of a young and old mouse are linked. The old mouse benefits and shows some signs of reversal of the consequences of aging, the young mouse exhibits accelerated signs of aging. Is this in fact due to beneficial signals in young blood? There is good evidence that strongly supports the case that benefits result from a dilution of harmful factors in old blood, and that beneficial factors in young blood are not important. Nonetheless, there is further independent evidence in which factors or extracellular vesicles derived from young blood have been used to produ...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs