Discovery of DNA's biological clock - The Mundo.es

A study from the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA) in the United States, reveals a biological clock embedded in our genome that can shed light on why our bodies age and how to stop process. Published in Monday’s edition of ‘Genome Biology’, the findings could provide valuable information on cancer and stem cell research.

While previous watches have been associated with saliva, hormones and telomeres, the new research is the first to identify an internal clock able to accurately measure the age of various organs, tissues and cell types.

Unexpectedly, the clock indicates that some parts of the anatomy, such as breast tissue of women age faster than the rest of the body.

“To combat aging, we first need an objective way to measure it. Locate the set of biomarkers that keep time throughout the body has been challenging four years,” said Steve Horvath, Professor of Human Genetics at the UCLA School of Medicine and Biostatistics at the School of Public Health at UCLA Fielding.

“My goal in the detection of this watch is to help scientists improve their understanding of which speeds up and slows down the human aging process ,” he said.

To create the clock, Horvath focused on methylation , a natural process that chemically alters DNA. This expert sieved 121 sets of data previously collected by researchers who have studied methylation in healthy and cancerous human tissues.

Picking

information about 8,000 samples of 51 types of tissue and cells throughout the body, traced how age affects DNA methylation levels from prenacimiento at 101.

To identify the clock, 353 focused on markers that change with age and are present throughout the body. Horvath clock proved the efficiency by comparing the biological age of a tissue to her chronological age and, when the clock was accurate on several occasions, was very happy but also a little stunned.

“It is surprising that one can develop a time clock that reliably through human anatomy,” he admitted.

While most ages biological samples matched their chronological age , other diverged considerably. For example, Horvath found that the age of breast tissue of women are higher than the rest of your body.

“healthy breast tissue is two to three years older than the rest of the body of a woman-coded Horvath. If a woman has breast cancer, healthy tissue near the tumor is averaging over 12 years old as the rest of his body. ” The results could explain why breast cancer is more common in women and may explain why age is a risk factor for many cancers in both sexes.

Horvath

also analyzed pluripotent stem cells, adult cells that have been reprogrammed to an embryonic stem cell state, allowing them to form any type of cell in the body and continue to divide indefinitely.

“My research shows that all newborn stem cells are” he said, adding that the process of transforming a person’s cells into pluripotent stem cells resets the clock to zero cells.

In principle, this discovery proves that scientists can turn back the biological clock of the body and restore it to zero, but, in his view, the big question is whether the biological clock controls a process that leads to aging. “If so, the clock will become an important biomarker for the study of new therapeutic approaches to stay young,” he predicted this researcher.

Finally, Horvath discovered that the clock rate is accelerated or slowed down depending on the age of a person. “The ticking clock is not constant-explained.’s Much faster when we are born and during the growth of children and adolescents then decreases steadily to reach 20 “.

In an unexpected finding, cells from children with progeria, a genetic disease that causes premature aging, appeared normal and reflected their true chronological age. UCLA has filed a provisional patent for the clock Horvath and subsequent studies will focus on examining whether to stop the body clock stops aging or increase the risk of cancer.