A Spanish investigation published in Nature reveals a new technique that allows you to know the “bar codes” written in our DNA and that help us know how blood ages, a first step for anti -aging therapies and early screening of diseases such as leukemia.
The discovery, signed by scientists from the Genomic Regulation Center (CRG) and the Biomedical Research Institute (IRB Barcelona), was possible after a study with marrow donors and mice.
Both in one and others, Blood stem cells They age reducing their diversity and favoring associated types or “clones” that lead to chronic inflammation, changes that are “almost universal” from 60 years.
We have managed to put a bar code, a last name, to those types of clones that reduce the diversity and robustness of the system, ”the group chief in the Genomic Regulation Center (CRG), Lars Velten, who collided the study with the IRB researcher Alejo Rodríguez-Fathicelli, told a press conference.
Rodríguez-Fraticelli wanted to highlight that this finding has been possible thanks to a technique developed in Barcelona (northeast of Spain) that allows to follow the “Bars codes” of blood DNA for long periods of time, which gives wings to study rejuvenation therapies directly in humans, without resorting to genetic modifications.
“What we have discovered is very exciting, it is something that will change the way we study cells and blood in textbooks,” he added.
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EPI-CLONE ‘technique
The technique, called ‘Epi-Clone’, which reads these barcodes in each cell based on the Tapestri Bio Tapestri platform for individual cell sequencing, allows to rebuild the history of blood production, identifying which stem cells contribute to blood (expanding) and which ones are abandoning the race (extinguishing) over time.
The study also discovered that some large clones of cells housed mutations related to clonal hematopoiesis, a process in which some blood stem cells acquire mutations that allow them to grow and multiply faster than others.
The phenomenon becomes more common with age and it has been shown that increases the risk of diseases cardiac, stroke and leukemia.
However, many of the dominant clones identified by Epi-Clone had no known mutation, suggesting that clonal expansion is a general characteristic of blood aging, not just a sign of cancer risk, they explain.
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CIBAJES FOR EARLY DETECTION
Researchers point out that in the future doctors could one day evaluate clonal behavior in themselves for early detection, offering doctors a way of controlling how the set of blood cells of a person is aging a person years before any disease develops.
People with a faster loss of diversity or rapid expansion of risk clones could be indicated to Receive preventive attention.
Velten has indicated the potential for the implementation of screening if it is possible to develop the technique lowering the current price available (around $ 5,670) to around the almost 57 dollars. “We believe that it is possible and opens the door to better prevent leukemia”he pointed out.
The researchers recalled that blood diseases, such as leukemia, are not so easy to detect in time as breast cancer, among others, which has a more visible shape and consistency.
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A door to anti -aging therapies
On the other hand, the study opens the door to anti -aging therapies in humans, after mice studies have shown that the selective elimination of stem cells with myeloid biases (related to chronic inflammation) can increase the production of lymphocytes that combat infections and improve immune responses.
The reference study, ‘Clonal Tracing with Somatic Epimutations Reveals Dynamics of Blood Ageing’, received financing from the Spanish Association against Cancer, Cris against Cancer, the European Research Council (ERC), the European Hematology Association, the Foundation “La Caixa”, the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Generalitat de Catalunya, and the Generalitat of Catalonia, and the Generalitat of Catalonia, and the General.
(With EFE information)
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