Removing Aged Cells From Mice Can Restore Their Youth, Study Finds

A study from Mayo Clinic researchers published in Nature Medicine found that the removal of senescent cells from old mice increased their longevity and reversed their decrepitude, reports Stat . The elimination of senescent cells might slow aging because those cells actively pump out inflammatory compounds that destroy young cells and disable progenitor cells that give birth to new cells, says the Mayo Clinic's James Kirkland. "Senescent cells put the brakes on the production of new cells," he notes. Kirkland's team initially transplanted 500,000 Methuselah cells into six-month-old or 17-month-old mice. The transplantation accelerated the mice's aging process, making them slower, weaker, and frailer within two weeks. The older mice with the transplants also were five times more likely to die within 12 months than the non-transplanted mice. The team then gave both the young mice with transplanted senescent cells and naturally old mice two senolytics: dasatinib, a leukemia drug, and quercetin, a plant compound. The compounds killed sufficient transplanted senescent cells in young mice to keep the animals from becoming prematurely slow, weak, and frail. Naturally old mice given the compounds walked faster, scampered longer on a treadmill, gripped objects more strongly, and were generally more active than their peers. Meanwhile, 24- to 27-month-old mice administered the senolytics lived 36 percent longer than their peers without the poor health and frailty typical of late life.