Forever Young: Reprogramming the Cellular Clock
New research reported this week in the journal Regenerative Medicine points to new directions for creating therapeutic stem cells from adult cells, a technique that has many possibilities for treatment of human diseases. Applying this technique may also lead to treatments directly applying to diseases of aging.
The paper (available here [PDF]) by authors from BioTime Inc., a California research company, demonstrates a new method that helps confirm the telomere hypothesis of cell aging. The telomere hypothesis suggests that a part of the chromosome called a telomere is the “clock” that counts the cell’s age.
One of the problems that has plagued research into so-called “adult” stem cells is that while it’s possible to make therapeutic stem cells from adult cells, these cells “act old.” Unlike embryonic stem cells, they can’t replicate as many times; they die out quickly.
Chromosomes are simply collections of DNA molecules that contain the “genetic code” used to build the proteins that become the body’s tissues. A chromosome is really a sequence of codons, which are like the letters in a coded message, like a teletype message. Teletype operators end each message with a sequence of repeated “K” characters, like this:
TO: READERS
THIS IS A TELETYPE MESSAGE. FOR YOUNGER READERS, A TELETYPE WAS LIKE TEXT MESSAGING EXCEPT IT PRINTED THE MESSAGES ON PAPER AND REQUIRED A KEYBOARD BIGGER THAN A BREADBOX.
KKKKK
The telomere is exactly like that series of K characters: it’s a repeated group of codons that ends the chromosome.
Well this is really going to throw the Social Security pyramid scheme out of whack!
The new retirement age: 95?
@Delia,
Regeneration therapy delaying SS till 95?
I’ll happily take THAT deal!
Interesting stuff, but it’s a lot more complicated than this short extract could possibly cover. There is very good evidence for example that mitochondrial activity has a big impact on cell lifetimes as well, cells with poorly performing mitochondria have shorter life spans. And there are undoubtedly other effects involved as well. But every bit of knowledge helps, and this is indeed an excellent piece of work that could well be available in a reasonable time to help some of those reading it.
well I hope they get on with it fast …and to the next level too. I think I’m at the need reversal stage not just stop it stage.
Do I have to fight the Posleen if I take the Boosterspice?
look like the deal with the deamon, as Goethe narred it, is going to become a reality
I’ll buy it if I can recover my twenties
Just think – you can have a full head of hair at 90! And nice teeth? But stock in erectile dysfunction meds may have to be sold.
Regardless, it just seems so much easier to have a cellular treatment that doesn’t have to contend with rejection. If one presumes that, eventually, foreign embryonic cells can be made to work as well as a patients own adult stem cells, it just a much easier and cheaper method to use one’s own cells. And, guess what? If the treatment doesn’t work it’s not likely they’ll kill you or give you some horrible untreatable disease as the embryonic ones tend to do.
“1. Delia:
The new retirement age: 95?”
SS at 95? Naw, you don’t have to worry about that. As soon as the death panels set up by Obamacare can control who gets what, we poor plebes will (surreptitiously) be given shorter telomeres, while the ruling class will receive longer telomeres. The ruling elites don’t need SS anyway. They have there own, separate retirement systems, as in California’s PERS, the Congress’s, and public school teachers’ unions. Then there are the rich who made their money in the capitalist tradition, but who now have turned against it, believing, I suppose, in the inevitability of class struggle. They’re determined to be the swine in Orwell’s “Animal Farm.” Who are they? The George Soros types – the Kennedys, the Rockefellers, and George Soros, himself – just to name a few.
While that’s occurring, illegal aliens (who will also get the shorter telomeres) will (secretly) be given fertility drugs so that they can pump out a bunch more nursery workers, seasonal veggie pickers, and lawn-service personnel – to manicure the ruling elites’ lawns and satisfy their penchant for vegan delights. Then, as we, and the illegals, die off sooner, the elites will declare that the now huge SS surplus is not needed, and they’ll confiscate it for themselves.
(To the reader: The above was an attempt at some sort of humor, which, I know has failed, because there’s too much truth in it. Not necessarily the telomere-related stuff, but the George Soros types, they’re real, and they’re out to win. If they win, we lose.)
2. Suicidal idiot,
Hey, watch the pot-shot monikers, pal. -But, if at first you don’t succeed, try–try again. ;p
8. Now how does killing off their tax base help them? People staying younger and healthier longer is exactly what they want because it means more productive taxpayers. Even if they see us as nothing but workhorses, you don’t shoot the horse that is getting the job done.
8. new utopian,
It’s not that crazy to ‘go there’ really. Think ‘crisis’ ala ‘h1n1′ or the likes, then ‘mandatory vaccinations’ for the ‘little people’ and voila!
…therapeutic stem cells from adult cells, these cells “act old.” Unlike embryonic stem cells, they can’t replicate as many times; they die out quickly.
One of the first cloned animals, Dolly The Sheep, died early as she’d been cloned from an “old” cell. At a relatively young chronological age, she exhibited some symptoms of old age, like arthritis.
Yeah, utopian, the house slaves for Obama, Nancy & friends will get the shorter telomeres and a designated briefer term of usefulness, uh, life span. A new twist on eugenics, right up John Holdren’s alley.
re: Ed Snack
I agree and now am a bit confused, as I could swear in my “old” age that just last week I had read the “shortening telomere” theory had at least been partially rejected in favor of the “oxidative stress and the mitochondrial theory of aging.”
All of this tells me for all of the information we have gathered, all of the brilliant discoveries of life and it mechanisms, we still understand just a fraction of the wonders of a single cell.
In my recent med school books, the most common phrasing is “still not fully understood.”
“10. myth buster:
8. Now how does killing off their tax base help them? People staying younger and healthier longer is exactly what they want because it means more productive taxpayers.”
In my (joke – admittedly, bad joke) scenario, you’re forgetting the illegals getting fertility drugs. Oh, what a tax base that would create.
Have a nice day.
Note to self: More grandchildren. Got to encourage kids to get busy if this is to work out for me.
Adult stem cells have already partially differentiated and are more properly called progenitor cells. Adding to telomere length will not reverse the partial differentiation so adult stem cells with lengthened telomeres will not act like embryonic stem cells. At best they will behave like younger adult stem cells (progenitor cells).
There are uses for progenitor cells but they are not pluripotent and there are large swaths of research into how cells differentiate and how humans and other animals develop that cannot be studied with progenitor cells.
Does this mean we’re going to have Nancy Pelosi with us for the next 500 years?
Jeb, you are misinformed, adult fully differentied cells have already been reverted to the point they can act as pluripotent stem cells, and can even be made to embryos.
With telomeres no longer restricting that development, as this research in the post above may lead to, this would permit embryonic stem cell therapy with the need for abortion.
Has anyone thought of how this will be paid for? Through insurance? Well then kiss off any employement. employers already are leary of hiring even very experienced people who are older than 50. They just cannot afford it.
I did not see any reference’s to the real age quickener, children, they can age you quicker than a bad diet or lack of exercise.
The research I have seen indicates that mesenchymal stem cells from bone marrow can be induced into multipotency, not pluripotency. It looks like they are a step or two away. If those last couple of hurdles are overcome that still leaves a single source.
The embryos desired for embryonic stem cell research are already destined for a garbage bin along with the hundreds of thousands of undesired IVF embryos before them.
Embryonic stem cell research has been a catastrophic failure. There is such a thing as being too diversifiable- you don’t want bone cells growing inside your heart. Besides, embryonic cells tend to form tumors- cells simply shouldn’t divide inside an adult nearly as fast as embryonic stem cells divide. Bad news all around.
myth buster,
I’m guessing your training in genetics is about as extensive as my training in aboriginal poetry.
#13 Tex: One of the aspects of this reearch has been that it shows more strongly that the telomere theory is at least a big part of the aging effect. The whole thing? No, but then they’re not suggesting this will make you young.
Several numbers, Jeb: here they’re talking about induced pluripotent stem cells, that is cells that appear to be fully pluripotent, like the cells taken from a blastocyst. The problem hs been that these IPSCs have’t acted fully like real pluripotent cells, and this research indicates at least a partial reason.
#22 Mythbuster: that’s oversimplified too. But one of the big reasons for interest in embryonic pluripoent cells is to understand how the differentiation occurs and how you can get the tissue you want.
BTW, notice that understanding the telomere/temomerase connection would help control turmor cell growth as well.
Charlie,
I didn’t mean to insinuate your article was wrong, but to suggest that the last couple of weeks (and I wish I could find that article) that I thought I had read scientists had now decided/determined the mitochondria was mainly responsible for cell aging.
While I know mitochondria ultimately responsible for cell death, I was always taught that researchers favored the shortening telomere theory of cell aging and ultimately apoptosis via the mitochondria, so obviously your article would more jive with what is both thought and taught in academia currently.
The reason I brought up mitochondrial pathway and oxidative stress aging theory, was that I had just read the article and it surprised me in the findings because it was contrary what I was taught as late as last fall.
Believe me, you would be more qualified to cast judgment in accuracy – I’m parroting what I read.
And that, kiddies, is proof that size DOES matter…
…or does it?
Charlie, I recently read where the suspicion was that a cell can only divide N times before transcription errors are common. If so then it doesn’t matter how big your telomerase is; if the division isn’t transcribing correctly, more cowbell (telomerase) doesn’t help.
Sorry but this sounds, erm… premature.
(I’m going for every sexual innuendo, pun, or pop reference I can squeeze in here.)
tex taylor,
Here you go –
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/436a39a0-1a6e-11df-a2e3-00144feab49a.html?nclick_check=1
Yes, that’s it. Thank you G.L.
“(I’m going for every sexual innuendo, pun, or pop reference I can squeeze in here.)”
Good job too!
Tex, I didn’t take it amiss, this is an area where there’s lots of neat stuff happening, and my time at the medical school was a long time ago. Jump right in with anything you think might contribute.
GL, the telomeres are at least part of the mechanism by which transcription errors are avoided. I’ve seen the telomere called the “aiglet” of the chromosome — cool word I haven’t used since ROTC, it’s the end-piece on a shoelace or a lanyard. The point is that the telomere prevents the end of the chromosome from fraying and so prevents some errors.
Telomeres are composed of a repeated sequence of TTAGGG aminos, where TTA is one codon “word” and “GGG” is anothter. (T=thymine, G=guanine, A=adenine, which along with cytosine are the aminos that make up DNA.) What telomerase does is add more TTAGGG groups to the end. So when a cell divides, it loses some TTAGGGs, but telomerase adds some back.
The tricky part is that tumor cells have lots of telomerase, which is why tumor cells are practically immortal. So a bit hit of telomerase is not the solution….
Charlie,
The research I am aware of (ex/ Jiang et al) indicates the creation of induced mulitpotency rather than true pluripotency. Do you have a cite for induced true pluripotency?
Jeb, only second hand, but I’ll dig for some.
DNA – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The four bases found in DNA are adenine (abbreviated A), cytosine (C), guanine (G) and thymine (T). These four bases are attached to the sugar/phosphate to …
I *thought* GATTACA had a “C” in it…
tom
One question is whether it is possible to reverse the effects of aging in the brain. Does the mechanism by which memories are stored lead to a loss of capacity to form new memories? If so then we may be able to grow younger physically but we will stay old mentally.
If there does become a way to prolong our lives well beyond the 100′s you can bet the Elites will be the only ones who can afford it and as soon as the ‘little people’ squabble about unfairness and how ‘everyone’ should live as long there will be a whole new angry mob.
Also, even though it seems like a ‘bad’ idea to kill off perfectly healthy people who can still ‘work’ before their ‘time’ of retirement; remember that people don’t like the idea of ‘working forever’ and there is a point where we all would like a break and to enjoy the fruits of our ‘labor’. This is the whole problem with the social security scheme in a nutshell; the worker bees got healthier with advanced medicine, better diets, lowered stress and higher creature comforts… Bam! The pyramid collapses.
In plant tissue cultures the embryogenic qualities of the tissue do change as the number of “generations” of cell divisions increases. I haven’t read anything that offers reasons for this.
In humans though, the real problem with living for a very long time is basements. With current lifespans basements already overflow with stuff. If we live any longer basements will have to be bigger than the house above them. This forever young thingy won’t work.
ok, live longer… but do you really, really, really really want to play God?
Why is that some righ-wing sector opposes to stem cells research? So, why to live longer or to live forever?
Jeb, here’s a little note in Nature about some induced plutipotency research. The Wikipedia article looks decent at this reading and has a number of decent references.
It occurs to me that radically increased lifespans among the general population would be a major boon to pacifists, tyrants and would-be tyrants everywhere. It’s one thing to risk your life to serve in the armed forces, or to take up arms against an oppressive government when it’s “only” a few decades you’re putting at risk. Bump that up to a few centuries or even a few millennia, and the risk/reward ratio becomes skewed to the point where even the most freedom-loving folks among us would have to have second thoughts.
And that’s just the tip of the massive iceberg of social and cultural upheaval that would come with any sudden increase in life expectancy.
there’s sumthin more simple: make a baby !
http://bit.ly/a1e3OW ‘The fountain of youth is pregnancy’