Scientists Find Clue to Aging Reversal in Mice

(HealthDay News) -- A discovery about the aging process in mice might one day help efforts to develop treatments for age-related diseases in humans, researchers report.
The biologists say they turned back the "molecular clock" in old mice by placing a "longevity" gene into their blood stem cells.
The gene, called SIRT3, belongs to a class of proteins called sirtuins, which help aged blood stem cells handle stress. Placing SIRT3 into the blood stem cells of old mice increased the formation of new blood cells, the investigators found. This, according to the researchers, is evidence of a reversal in the age-related decline in the old stem cells' function.
"We already know that sirtuins regulate aging, but our study is really the first one demonstrating that sirtuins can reverse aging-associated degeneration, and I think that's very exciting," study principal investigator Danica Chen, an assistant professor of nutritional science and toxicology at the University of California, Berkeley, said in a university news release.

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