age-related diseases tagged posts

Aging and age-related disorders pose a complex challenge to the biomedical research community. To better understand how senescence is regulated is of high significance to promote healthy aging and treat age-associated disorders. In a research paper published today in Nature Cell Biology, Rugang Zhang, Ph.D., deputy director of the Ellen and Ronald Caplan Cancer Center, Christopher M. Davis Endowed Professor, and program leader of the Immunology, Microenvironment & Metastasis Program, at The Wistar Institute, and his team revealed a novel ADAR1-SIRT1-p16INK4a axis in regulating cellular senescence and its potential implications in tissue aging.

“Understanding the basic mechanism underlying tissue aging is challenging and cellular senescence offers an...

Senescent cells (represented here in green) no longer function but can broadcast inflammatory signals to the cells around them. These cells are implicated in a number of age-related diseases.
Credit: Image courtesy of Mayo Clinic

Zombie cells are the ones that can’t die but are equally unable to perform the functions of a normal cell. These zombie, or senescent, cells are implicated in a number of age-related diseases. And with a new letter in Nature, Mayo Clinic researchers have expanded that list.

In a mouse model of brain disease, scientists report that senescent cells accumulate in certain brain cells prior to cognitive loss. By preventing the accumulation of these cells, they were able to diminish tau protein aggregation, neuronal death and memory loss.

“Senescent cells are known to ac...