Posted on 06/30/2005 6:56:03 PM PDT by Pharmboy
Hong Kong (Reuters)-- Scientists in Hong Kong have shed new light on why cell repair is less efficient in older people after a breakthrough discovery on premature aging, a rare genetic disease that affects one in four million babies.
Premature aging, or Hutchison-Gilford Progeria Syndrome (progeria), is obvious in the appearance of a child before it is a year old. Although their mental faculties are normal, they stop growing, lose body fat and suffer from wrinkled skin and hair loss.
Like old people, they suffer stiff joints and a buildup of plaque in arteries which can lead to heart disease and stroke. Most die of cardiovascular diseases before they are 20.
In 2003, a team of scientists in the United States found that progeria was caused by mutation in a protein called Lamin A, which lines the nucleus in human cells.
A team at the University of Hong Kong, led by Zhou Zhongjun, took the research a step further in 2004 and found that mutated Lamin A actually disrupted the repair process in cells, thus resulting in accelerated aging.
The study was published in the July issue of the Nature Medicine journal.
Zhou said the team came by their findings after comparing skin cells taken from two progeria sufferers, normal humans, progeria mice and normal mice.
While damaged DNA was quickly repaired in the healthy human and mice cell samples, the samples taken from the progeria humans and mice had difficulty repairing damaged DNA.
"Mutation in this protein (Lamin A) can cause defects in repair and thus lead to progeria," Zhou, a research assistant professor with the biochemistry department at the University of Hong Kong, said in an interview.
"DNA damage is not effectively repaired in cells with defective Lamin A but very efficiently repaired in normal cells."
The study highlights the importance of Lamin A to the repair process, and any mutation to Lamin A that disrupts repair will bring about aging, Zhou said.
Having established the link between Lamin A and repair, Zhou is using major findings from other research he did in 2002 to work on his next project, a product which he hopes could kill cancer cells.
Zhou, Professor Karl Tryggvason in Sweden's Karolinska Institute and a Spanish research group found in 2002 that the enzyme Zmpste 24 was responsible in converting prelamin A to functional Lamin A.
Zhou's laboratory is now developing inhibitors to Zmpste 24, which he hopes to apply to tumors. These inhibitors should theoretically disrupt Lamin A production, thwart the repair function in cancer cells, and bring on their premature aging and death.
"We're now trying to develop inhibitors to Zmpste 24 and apply it to tumor cells," he said.
Life is the ultimate poem, IMO. How could you ever change the ending?
However, it is more in the realm of philosophy; I posted this for the interesting science it raises. Philosophy, religion and morality will be called upon more and more as scientific advances continue in biomedicine...
E.T. Phone Home.
Those kids really do remind us of the Roswell-looking aliens, don't they?
This is not comedy.
One more reason to embarass my kids with a hug (in front of their friends).
Can't seem to hug them long enough these days.
Getting old sucks, then again, the alternative isn't much better.
TT
The thing that gets me about this article is that they are talking about cancer cures, which is admirable, but not about eternal youth, which also seems possible if they are correct about this.
If you are talking about how people live and die, then we have changed the poem enormously already. Increasing life span by a few more hundred years will only make the poem longer and richer.
Everybody dies, even if only by accident, after thousands of years.
Cancer cures are just another form of life extension.
As for eternal youth...yes, but only until you die. This is not immortality.
Read a book about Eternal Youth, the Book is more than 2000 years old.
I believe it is currently banned in the US though.
fyi
I wonder if they have determined if Lamin A decreases or changes with age? If it does they may be really on to something. If not they just identified a specific disease process for a rare disorder. I would think they would be rushing to answer this question, rather than looking at cancer.
You can get funding for cancer research.
They say we would live on the average 600 years even without disease and aging. This would be the effect of accidents. Accidents would include war, murder and suicide I assume. Would this change society?
Seems like we might reconsider the legal age of childhood. Perhaps bump it up to 71.
bump for later
Just about the time Social Security gets fixed, we will be able to live to 150 and screw it up again.
Is anybody ready for a working life of 600 years? Retirement at 650, or 620 for early retirement. Except cops and military, they can still retire at 40 and buy a Winnebago so they can mooch off the relatives across the country for 720 years, on average.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.