A recent study by a team of scientists led by University of Montreal professor Francis Rodier
According to a study published byin Nucleic Acids Research, the human cell is aging as a result of damage to the genome, and the damage is irreversible. And this discovery goes against the theory of aging, which scientists adhered to earlier.
It was believed that telomeres (that is, the “caps” onend of chromosomes; main function of telomeres – protection of genetic information) with each division the cells are destroyed, and when they become too short, they “tell” the cell to stop dividing. In this case, the researchers thought, the DNA was not damaged. As a result, after division stops, the cell begins to age.
But it turned out that this cell division, associated with dysfunction of telomeres, is unstable. And this leads to genetic defects. In other words, senescent cells have an abnormal genome.
To conduct the research, a group of scientistsused the equipment due to which it was possible to recreate the process of cellular aging in the laboratory. It turned out that all telomeres of the cell population become dysfunctional.
Source: Phys.org