Scientists at Babraham Institute have been able to partly restore the function of old cells as well as rejuvenate the molecular measures of biological age, according to a recent ANI report.?
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Essentially, researchers have been able to rewind a cell¡¯s biological clock by around 30 years according to molecular measures, way better than previously known reprogramming methods.?
It is no secret that when our cells age, their ability to function also declines with the genome developing signs of ageing. Regenerative biology wishes to fix that by repairing or even replacing old cells, and one commonly known method is the creation of induced stem cells.?
The process consists of multiple steps and each one of those steps eliminates some of the marks that made a cell specialised in something. Theoretically, the idea is to turn stem cells into any kind of cells. However, current technology isn¡¯t able to reliably recreate the conditions to allow the differentiation of stem cells into different cell types.?
The novel method, however, gets rid of the issue of completely erasing the cell identity by stopping reprogramming part of the way through the process. This enabled researchers to look for a correct balance between reprogramming cells, making them biologically younger while also being able to regain their specialised cell function.?
Shinya Yamanaka was the first scientist to have been able to turn normal cells into stem cells with the ability to switch into any cell type, 2007. The entire process takes around 50 days using four key molecules, also referred to as the Yamanaka Factors.?
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The novel method that has been called ¡®maturation phase transient reprogramming¡¯ exposes cells to Yamanaka factors for just 13 days. This causes the age-related changes to be removed and cells to have lost their identity temporarily. The partly programmed cells were offered time to grow under normal conditions to see if they flipped back to their specific skin cell function.
Genome analysis revealed that the cells actually had regained markers characteristic of skin cells (also known as fibroblasts) and this was confirmed after seeing collagen production in reprogrammed cells.?
Researchers, to show that the cells had in fact rejuvenated, looked at several measures of cellular age such as epigenetic clock and transcriptome. Comparing the cells using these two measures, researchers saw that the cells were 30 years younger compared to the reference data sets.?
Researchers claim that this has the potential to not just make cells appear younger but also function like young cells, collagen in fibroblasts can help in healing wounds and offer structure to tissues. The rejuvenated fibroblasts produce more collagen proteins compared to control cells that weren¡¯t a part of the reprogramming process.
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Dr Diljeet Gill, a postdoc in Wolf Reik's lab at the Institute who conducted the work as a PhD student stated, "Our results represent a big step forward in our understanding of cell reprogramming. We have proved that cells can be rejuvenated without losing their function and that rejuvenation looks to restore some function to old cells. The fact that we also saw a reverse of ageing indicators in genes associated with diseases is particularly promising for the future of this work."
Professor Wolf Reik, the group leader in the Epigenetics research program concluded by stating, "This work has very exciting implications. Eventually, we may be able to identify genes that rejuvenate without reprogramming, and specifically target those to reduce the effects of ageing. This approach holds promise for valuable discoveries that could open up an amazing therapeutic horizon."