

If experts can identify chromatin-modifying regulators that are downregulated in ageing stem cells, restoring their expression would be a probable focus on to protect against ageing.
Scientists have designed a system to recognize aging muscle mass stem cells.
The difficulty of getting older and the combat versus it has prolonged been prevalent in both common and modern day literature all through human heritage. From the ill-fated Qin Shi Huang’s expedition to the sea in pursuit of eternal everyday living to the fame of Count Dracula in the West, getting older has caught the world’s fascination for hundreds of many years and stays unsolved.
In an remarkable breakthrough, researchers have developed a way to detect aged muscle mass stem cells (MuSCs) based mostly on their chromatin signature. MuSCs participate in an vital function in muscle mass repair service. The investigation workforce was from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technologies (HKUST) and was led by Professor Tom Cheung, an associate professor of everyday living sciences.
In contrast to their young counterparts, aging MuSCs have lessened stemness (the skill to turn out to be new stem cells or change into specialised cells to switch broken tissues). If the chromatin signature of an aged mobile can be restored to that of a young mobile, the course of action of mobile aging—and, in this illustration, skeletal muscle tissue aging—may be slowed or even reversed.
The results were being not long ago released in the journal iScience.
“The regulation of chromatin accessibility is important for cell destiny selections,” said Professor Cheung. “Changes in the chromatin state can guide to dysregulation of gene expression. In our examine, we ended up ready to recognize the chronically activated chromatin point out as a hallmark of stem mobile growing older, which could be a concentrate on for producing anti-getting old tactics.”
Chromatin, a intricate of
“We showed that the chromatin environment of young muscle stem cells is very compact during quiescence, becomes highly accessible on early activation, and gradually re-establishes the compact state after long-term regeneration. However, aged muscle stem cells lose their ability to maintain such a compact chromatin environment during quiescence,” said Dr. Anqi Dong, first author of the study and a former member of Professor Cheung’s research group who is now a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Université libre de Bruxelles.
Many possibilities are waiting to be unearthed now that scientists have gained a better understanding of what happens to an aging cell, opening a variety of avenues for anti-aging strategies to be pursued further.
“Have we solved the mystery of aging? Yes, but not quite,” noted Professor Cheung. “If we can find chromatin-modifying regulators that are downregulated in aged stem cells, these will be potential targets to prevent aging by restoring their expression. As we are able to make a clear comparison between the chromatin states of young and old muscle stem cells, we have also identified target locations that are specifically accessible in young muscle stem cells. If the accessibility of those regions can be maintained during aging, we may be able to find ways to keep cells young and healthy longer.”
“Our current study describes the changes in chromatin accessibility during stem cell isolation and activation, but the journey has just begun,” said Professor Cheung. “We look forward to further investigating the mechanisms that alter the chromatin state during muscle stem cell isolation and activation, and it is important we conduct the same study in vivo for more insights.”
Reference: “Global chromatin accessibility profiling analysis reveals a chronic activation state in aged muscle stem cells” by Anqi Dong, Jing Liu, Kangning Lin, Wenshu Zeng, Wai-Kin So, Shenyuan Hu and Tom H. Cheung, 17 August 2022, iScience.
DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.104954