Imagine if we could turn back time. A team that has identified a new way in which cells age has also reversed the process in old mice whose bodies appear younger in several ways.
As we age, mitochondrial function declines, which can lead to conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and diabetes. To investigate why this decline occurs, Ana Gomes at Harvard Medical School and her colleagues compared the levels of messenger RNA (mRNA) for the cellular components needed for respiration in the skeletal muscle of 6 and 22-month-old mice.
They found that the level of the mRNA in the nucleus did not change much between the young and old mice, whereas those in the mitochondria appeared to decline with age.
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