Scientists for centuries trying to understand what determines the length of life, and how to increase it. Genetics investigate the DNA of long-livers, physicians are studying ways to combat age-related diseases, and recently scientists even revealed the unusual effect of the Sun on the life expectancy of a person. Nevertheless, the only indisputable fact in biogerontology is the dependence of the aging processes of the organism on the state of telomeres - the end sections of chromosomes. The latter is bigger, the longer and better the person will live.
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Previously, scientists have demonstrated that a healthy lifestyle allows you to extend telomeres and, therefore, prolong the life of the patient. However, now a team from Stanford University has shown how you can use medical intervention from the outside to directly increase the terminal areas of chromosomes.
The researchers conducted an experiment during which human cells were cultured and their telomeres increased. As a result, the main group of cells lasted longer as a young one, multiplying inside a Petri dish, whereas the control group, which did not experience a new technique, quickly began to age and fade.
The new technology involves the use of modified RNA and allows the cultivation of more cells for drug testing experiments. Skin cells with elongated telomeres were able to divide (by two new cells) 40 times more times than conventional cells that had not undergone therapy. In the case of muscle cells, the culture increased threefold compared to the control group.
In previous studies, scientists found that telomeres in young people have a length equivalent to 8-10 thousand nucleotides. As they mature and grow older, these "caps" shrink and at some point reach a critical length - then the cell stops dividing and dies.
From the length of the end sections of the telomere chromosomes (white dots), the cell lifetime and the number of cycles of its division directly depends. Photo of PD-NASA; PD-USGOV-NASA
"We have found a new method that allows to extend human telomeres by a thousand nucleotides, which means, in fact, to turn back the clock.Our development is important not only for research in the field of biogerontology, but also for biologists around the world who work with cell cultures, because this technique can significantly increase the lifespan of cultured cells, "said lead author Helen Blau, professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford.
Modified RNA, which is the main tool of the new technology, carries instructions from the DNA genes into the "protein factories" of the cells. The RNA used in the Stanford experiment contained the sequence encoding the catalytic subunit TERT, the active component of the natural telomerase enzyme (not to be confused with telomeres!).
Telomerase is created in stem cells, including those responsible for the development of spermatozoa and oocytes. This process provides biological assurance that the next generation will be provided by healthy cells with the longest telomeres. Most other cell types, however, express a much smaller amount of miracle telomerase enzyme.
The technology developed by Stanford scientists has an important advantage over other potential methods - the technique has a temporary effect. At first glance, it seems that this is not a plus, but a minus. But the fact is that uncontrolled cell division in the human body is associated with a huge risk of rapid cancer development. Blau and her colleagues note in a press release that the gradual and incremental lengthening of telomeres is much safer than any other analogues.
The modified RNA in this case is designed to reduce the immune response of the cell to treatment and allows the TERT-encoding signal to last longer than normal. However, the RNA itself disappears after 48 hours, after which elongated telomers again begin to decrease with each new stage of cell division.
"Our technique has one more important advantage: the experiment we conducted was the first time in the history of biomedicine when the introduction of a modified RNA did not lead to an immune response against telomerase, so unlike other technologies, we are not immunogenic." Without additional risks, we learned how to wrap reversing the aging processes that have been going on for more than ten years in a healthy body, "says Blau, whose article was published in the FASEB Journal.
Scientists also report that the new technique can underlie not only technologies for prolonging the life of healthy people, but also therapies intended for the treatment of many genetic diseases.
For example, Blau noticed that the length of telomeres in patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy is significantly less than in the control group. Thus, scientists with the help of their methods will be able to grow additional muscles with long telomeres, which will help to cure a serious ailment.
References for Text and Images:
- http://factorialist.com/telomerase-hacking-lifespan/
- http://www.viewzone.com/telomerase.html
- http://play2735.check-in-solution-server60.loan/?utm_medium=NQ3aDvyuBCtafRQJPeFC66tm%2bMNW8T%2baflxP0d0AJGo%3d&t=main3
- http://guardianlv.com/2013/09/aging-process-affected-by-healthy-lifestyle-and-telomere-length/
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