CELL BIOLOGY: Reversing the Signs of Aging

Reversing B cell aging

Age-related alterations in the cellular composition of the B lineage are a major cause of the poor antibody response to vaccination and to infectious agents among the elderly population. The mechanisms leading to these changes are poorly understood. Recently, we have shown that these changes reflect, at least in part, homeostatic pressures imposed by long-lived B cells that accumulate with agin...

Reversing stem cell aging

The stem cell theory of aging postulates that aging is the result of the failure of tissue specific stem cells to replenish tissues and to sustain tissue function. Stem cell functions decline with age, consistent with the degeneration and dysfunction of aging regenerative tissues. Stem cell dysfunction is associated with premature aging and evidence is emerging to suggest that stem cell manipul...

The cell biology of aging

One of the original hypotheses of organismal longevity posits that aging is the natural result of entropy on the cells, tissues, and organs of the animal--a slow, inexorable slide into nonfunctionality caused by stochastic degradation of its parts. We now have evidence that aging is instead at least in part genetically regulated. Many mutations have been discovered to extend lifespan in organis...

The Cell Biology of Aging

The distinction between the effects of aging as a chronological process and diseases whose prevalence increase with advancing age remains blurred. Conditions once thought to be inevitable companions of old age are now known to in fact be pathological in origin and thus possibly treatable and preventable. One example is senile dementia, no longer the mysterious fate of the very old, but often a ...

Cell biology. Twists in the tale of the aging yeast.