March 10, 2011
A Model for Aging in a Dish.
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One of the major difficulty in studying human aging is the duration, the human aging process takes decades to develop. The slow progression as well as the complexity of the aging process makes it very hard to study progression of cardiovascular and other related age diseases.
Researchers at the salk institute lead by Juan-Carlos Izpisua Belmonte has reprogrammed skin cells from a child suffering from Hutchinson-Gifford progeria into induced pluripotent (iPS) stem cells and differentiated them into smooth muscle cells in a lab dish that displayed all the charachetrisic of aging cell. Progeria is a rare genetic disorder where symptoms resembling aspects of aging are manifested at an early age. Progeria is caused by mutation in gene encoding protein lamin A, which forms a two dimensional matrix next to the inner nuclear membrane. Mutation results in the production of truncated version of Lamin called progeria with abnormal function.
Further in the nature paper, the salk research noted that in the embryonic-like state the lamin A was silenced, but when those cells were differentiated into smooth muscle the signs of premature aging appeared.
Guang-Hui Liu, Basam Z. Barkho, Sergio Ruiz, Dinh Diep, Jing Qu, Sheng-Lian Yang, Athanasia D. Panopoulos, Keiichiro Suzuki, Leo Kurian, Christopher Walsh, James Thompson, Stephanie Boue, Ho Lim Fung, Ignacio Sancho-Martinez, Kun Zhang, John Yates III, Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte. Recapitulation of premature ageing with iPSCs from Hutchinson–Gilford progeria syndrome. Nature, 2011; DOI: 10.1038/nature09879
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