Mesenchymal Stem Cells Improve Neurogenesis and Cognitive Function in Old Mice
The signaling produced by transplanted mesenchymal stem cells is well known to reduce the chronic inflammation that accompanies aging. This is a temporary effect, as the transplanted cells near all die rather than engraft, but it can lead to lasting improvement should the respite allow tissues to better maintain themselves for a time. Chronic inflammation is highly disruptive to tissue function, and drives the onset and progression of many age-related conditions. It is thus an important target for interventions aiming to reduce the burden of aging. Here, researchers show that mesenchymal stem cell therapy can improve neuro...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 21, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Towards a Better Understanding of Clonal Hematopoiesis of Indeterminate Potential
Somatic mosaicism arises from random mutational damage to stem cells and progenitor cells. Daughter somatic cells resulting from mutated cells also bear these mutations, and so a pattern of differently mutated somatic cell populations spreads throughout a tissue over years and decades. This is thought to be a mechanism by which nuclear DNA damage can give rise to some meaningful degree of dysfunction beyond cancer risk. Otherwise, one must accept that near all mutations (a) affect few cells, as somatic cells are limited in their ability to replicate, and (b) occur in cells that will be destroyed on some timescale, as they ...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 20, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, March 20th 2023
This study also provides the potential for de novo generation of complex organs in vivo.
T Cells May Play a Role in the Brain Inflammation Characteristic of Neurodegenerative Conditions
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2023/03/t-cells-may-play-a-role-in-the-brain-inflammation-characteristic-of-neurodegenerative-conditions/
Alzheimer's disease, and other forms of neurodegenerative condition, are characterized by chronic inflammation in brain tissue. Unresolved inflammatory signaling is disruptive of tissue structure and function. Here, researchers provide evidence for T cells to become involved in thi...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 19, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
More on Transcriptional Noise in Aging
As a companion piece to a recent article questioning whether transcriptional noise actually exists as envisaged, this review paper covers what is known and unknown in this part of the field. Transcriptional noise is random variation in the first stage of gene expression, and it is thought to increase with age. It seems likely to be a consequence of the broad variety of changes and dysfunctions that occur in cellular biochemistry in old tissues, an accompaniment to faltering quality control of protein synthesis and altered epigenetics. While easily defined at the high level, transcriptional noise is challenging to measure i...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 13, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, March 13th 2023
In this study, we report the extensive and progressive accumulation of misfolded proteins during natural aging/senescence in different models, in the absence of disease. We coined the term age-ggregates to refer to this subset of proteins. Our findings demonstrate that age-ggregates exhibit the main characteristics of misfolded protein aggregates implicated in PMDs, including insolubility in detergents, protease-resistance, and staining with dyes specific for misfolded aggregates. Misfolded protein aggregates with these characteristics are thought to be implicated in some of today most prevalent diseases, including Alzheim...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 12, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Another New Player in the Thymus Regeneration Space
It seems there is ever more enthusiasm for regenerating the thymus these days, which is welcome. A number of companies are out there pursuing widely divergent scientific programs to achieve this goal, at varying stages of progress towards the clinic. At some point, someone will figure out an optimal path past the various challenges presented by the location and biology of the thymus to produce a large regrowth of this organ in older individuals. The company noted here, Thymmune Therapeutics, is taking the cell therapy approach, which I think to be one of the more viable options, given that a few cell types have been shown ...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 10, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
MPC Inhibition Activates Neural Stem Cells to Increase Neurogenesis
Stem cells spend much of their time quiescent, only intermittently activating to produce daughter somatic cells. Some well studied populations of stem cells are known to become increasingly quiescent with age, a response to some mix of internal damage and altered signaling environment that arises due to chronic inflammation and other age-related issues. Researchers here report on a way to force neural stem cells back into greater activity, increasing the pace at which new neurons are generated. Since this process of neurogenesis declines with age, contributing to loss of cognitive function, there is considerable interest i...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 10, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
More on Extracellular Vesicles in Aging, and as a Treatment for Age-Related Conditions
The review paper here might be compared with a very similar paper noted a few days ago. Any discussion of extracellular vesicles is essentially a discussion of cell signaling in general. Extracellular vesicles are membrane wrapped packages of signaling molecules that carry a sizable fraction of all of the varied signaling molecules that pass between cells. Cell signaling changes with age because cell behavior changes with age, and thus this is a vast topic, and hard to do more than touch on summary points in a single paper. It is perhaps the case that more attention is being given to extracellular vesicles these days becau...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 9, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Extracellular Vesicles in Aging
Extracellular vesicles of varying size classes carry a sizable fraction of all cell signaling. These are membrane-wrapped collections of molecules, generated in various ways and under various circumstances by sources cells. When researchers discuss extracellular vesicles in the context of aging, this is really a discussion of cell signaling in general. In the context of aging, vesicles are perhaps a more interesting topic than cell signaling in general because they are readily harvested and delivered as a therapy. Initially, this is being used to recapitulate the effects of stem cell transplants, delivering vesicles harves...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 8, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Towards Transplantation of Stem Cell Derived Neurons for Parkinson's Disease
The more obvious manifestations of Parkinson's disease stem from the the loss of a small population of dopamine-generating neurons. These cells are more sensitive to the underlying pathology of α-synuclein protein aggregation that drives the condition. Researchers have been working towards cell therapies that deliver new neurons for a long time now. A variety of clinical trials are underway, using a variety of cell sources; here, one of those programs has advanced to the stage of a first treated patient. None of these programs have yet emerged into widespread clinical practice. Is replacing cells the best way forward in t...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 7, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, March 6th 2023
In this study, we develop a rFOXN1 fusion protein that contains the N-terminal of CCR9, FOXN1, and TAT. We show here that, when injected intravenously (i.v.) into aged mice, the rFOXN1 fusion protein can migrate into the thymus and enhance T cell generation in the thymus, resulting in increased number of peripheral T cells. Our results suggest that the rFOXN1 fusion protein has the potential to be used in preventing and treating T cell immunodeficiency in the older adult.
Increased miR-181a-5p Expression Improves Neural Stem Cell Activity, Learning, and Memory in Old Mice
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/20...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 5, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Assessing the Spread of Mitochondrial Mutations in Tissue
There is evidence for mitochondrial DNA mutations to spread throughout a tissue, though the degree to which each of the possible mechanisms contribute to this outcome is unknown. Mitochondrial DNA mutations in stem cells will spread in the same way as nuclear DNA mutation, producing mosaicism. Cells can also transfer mitochondria, however. Further, mitochondria are subject to selection effects based on their continued replication and removal by quality control mechanisms. Thus it is far from clear as to exactly how any observed snapshot of mitochondrial mutations came about. Researchers have taken a swing at this challenge...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 3, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Increased miR-181a-5p Expression Improves Neural Stem Cell Activity, Learning, and Memory in Old Mice
Neurogenesis occurs throughout life to support the changes in neural structure inherent in learning and memory. It also provides some resilience to brain injury, when it comes to maintaining and restoring function. In the process of neurogenesis, new daughter neurons are generated by neural stem cells, and then mature and integrate into existing neural networks in brain tissue. This is all largely studied in mice, due to the difficulties inherent in obtaining access to living human brains, but despite some debate it is reasonable to assume that learning and memory in our species are similarly supported by ongoing neurogene...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 2, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Improving on the FOXN1-TAT Fusion Protein Approach for Thymic Regeneration
In this study, we develop a rFOXN1 fusion protein that contains the N-terminal of CCR9, FOXN1, and TAT. We show here that, when injected intravenously (i.v.) into aged mice, the rFOXN1 fusion protein can migrate into the thymus and enhance T cell generation in the thymus, resulting in increased number of peripheral T cells. Our results suggest that the rFOXN1 fusion protein has the potential to be used in preventing and treating T cell immunodeficiency in the older adult. (Source: Fight Aging!)
Source: Fight Aging! - March 1, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Ovarian Organoids to Study Reproductive Health
Researchers at the Harvard Wyss Institute are collaborating with a biotechnology company called Gameto to develop human ovarian organoids that will allow the study of reproductive and other health issues using tissues that closely mimic those in human patients. Another application may lie in allowing people with fertility issues to conceive. To date, ovarian organoids have been created using a mixture of human and mouse cells, which limits their relevance and translation to human disease. It is also a slow process to create such hybrid human/animal organoids.
This new approach involves using induced pluripotent stem cel...
Source: Medgadget - February 28, 2023 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Ob/Gyn Reproductive Medicine harvard wyssinstitute Source Type: blogs
