David McCormick

Ageing Stopped in Mice Livers

Scientists stop the ageing process › News in Science (ABC Science)

Scientists have stopped the ageing process in an entire organ for the first time, a study released today says.

Published in today’s online edition of Nature Medicine, researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University in New York City also say the older organs function as well as they did when the host animal was younger.

To summarize, one of the main ways that the liver loses performance with age is the buildup of junk proteins. In a young normal liver, these proteins are rounded up and transferred into sacs called lysosomes where they are broken down into harmless molecules. A chemical receptor on the lysosome enables this process.

As the liver ages, the receptors stop working well, and the toxic proteins don’t get digested. The liver slowly degenerates as the proteins build up.

This study created genetically modified mice with more copies of those receptors. Those mice had healthy livers into their old age (22-26 months).

An important side note is that this is not simply a liver problem. A build-up of toxic material is pronounced in Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other neurodegenerative disorders. If the same technique can be applied to the brain, it may be a major breakthrough for prevention of those disorders.

This study explores one of the 7 causes of ageing: Intracellular aggregates. You can read about the work of SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) and the work of Aubrey de Gray on this page about Seven Deadly Things (and why there are only seven)

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