PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Scientists make old muscles young again in attempt to combat aging

An international team of scientists have identified for the first time a key factor responsible for declining muscle repair during aging, and discovered how to halt the process in mice with a common drug

2012-09-27
(Press-News.org) An international team of scientists have identified for the first time a key factor responsible for declining muscle repair during ageing, and discovered how to halt the process in mice with a common drug. Although an early study, the findings provide clues as to how muscles lose mass with age, which can result in weakness that affects mobility and may cause falls.

The study, to be published in the journal Nature, involved researchers from King's College London, Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital.

The study looked at stem cells found inside muscle – which are responsible for repairing injury – to find out why the ability of muscles to regenerate declines with age. A dormant reservoir of stem cells is present inside every muscle, ready to be activated by exercise and injury to repair any damage. When needed, these cells divide into hundreds of new muscle fibres that repair the muscle. At the end of the repairing process some of these cells also replenish the pool of dormant stem cells so that the muscle retains the ability to repair itself again and again.

The researchers carried out a study on old mice and found the number of dormant stem cells present in the pool reduces with age, which could explain the decline in the muscle's ability to repair and regenerate as it gets older. When these old muscles were screened the team found high levels of FGF2, a protein that has the ability to stimulate cells to divide. While encouraging stem cells to divide and repair muscle is a normal and crucial process, they found that FGF2 could also awaken the dormant pool of stem cells even when they were not needed. The continued activation of dormant stem cells meant the pool was depleted over time, so when the muscle really needed stem cells to repair itself the muscle was unable to respond properly.

Following this finding, the researchers attempted to inhibit FGF2 in old muscles to prevent the stem cell pool from being kick-started into action unnecessarily. By administering a common FGF2 inhibitor drug they were able to inhibit the decline in the number of muscle stem cells in the mice.

Dr Albert Basson, Senior Lecturer at the King's College London Dental Institute, said: 'Preventing or reversing muscle wasting in old age in humans is still a way off, but this study has for the first time revealed a process which could be responsible for age-related muscle wasting, which is extremely exciting.

'The finding opens up the possibility that one day we could develop treatments to make old muscles young again. If we could do this, we may be able to enable people to live more mobile, independent lives as they age.'

Dr Andrew Brack, senior and corresponding author of the study from Harvard University, said: 'Analogous to the importance of recovery for athletes training for a sporting event, we now know that it is essential for adult stem cells to rest between bouts of expenditure. Preventing stem cell recuperation leads to their eventual demise.'

Kieran Jones, co-author of the study from King's, added: 'We do not yet know how or why levels of the protein FGF2 increase with age, triggering stem cells to be activated when they are not needed. This is something that needs to be explored.

'The next step is to analyse old muscle in humans to see if the same mechanism could be responsible for stem cell depletion in human muscle fibres, leading to loss of mass and wastage.'

### CONTACT
Katherine Barnes
International PR Manager
Tel: +44 207 848 3076
Email: katherine.barnes@kcl.ac.uk

NOTES TO EDITORS

The study was funded by the UK Biotechnology, and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), Harvard Stem Cell Institute and National Institutes of Health

A copy of the paper available on request

About King's College London (www.kcl.ac.uk)

King's College London is one of the top 30 universities in the world (2011/12 QS World University Rankings), and the fourth oldest in England. A research-led university based in the heart of London, King's has nearly 23,500 students (of whom more than 9,000 are graduate students) from nearly 140 countries, and some 6,000 employees. King's is in the second phase of a £1 billion redevelopment programme which is transforming its estate.

King's has an outstanding reputation for providing world-class teaching and cutting-edge research. In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise for British universities, 23 departments were ranked in the top quartile of British universities; over half of our academic staff work in departments that are in the top 10 per cent in the UK in their field and can thus be classed as world leading. The College is in the top seven UK universities for research earnings and has an overall annual income of nearly £450 million.

King's has a particularly distinguished reputation in the humanities, law, the sciences (including a wide range of health areas such as psychiatry, medicine, nursing and dentistry) and social sciences including international affairs. It has played a major role in many of the advances that have shaped modern life, such as the discovery of the structure of DNA and research that led to the development of radio, television, mobile phones and radar. It is the largest centre for the education of healthcare professionals in Europe; no university has more Medical Research Council Centres.

The College is in the midst of a five-year, £500 million fundraising campaign – World questions|King's answers – created to address some of the most pressing challenges facing humanity as quickly as feasible. The campaign's three priority areas are neuroscience and mental health, leadership and society, and cancer. More information about the campaign is available at www.kcl.ac.uk/kingsanswers.


ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

TB drug could reduce mortality for MDR-TB and XDR-TB cases

2012-09-27
Results from an observational study evaluating a new anti-TB drug have found that the treatment can improve outcomes and reduce mortality among patients with both MDR-TB and XDR-TB. The research, published online ahead of print today (27 September 2012) in the European Respiratory Journal, suggests a drug called delamanid could have a public health benefit for MDR-TB and also for XDR-TB, as few effective treatment options are currently available. Over the past two decades, multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) has emerged as a significant public health threat, with strains ...

Salt marsh carbon may play role in slowing climate warming, study shows

2012-09-27
A warming climate and rising seas will enable salt marshes to more rapidly capture and remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, possibly playing a role in slowing the rate of climate change, according to a new study led by a University of Virginia environmental scientist and published in the Sept. 27 issue of the journal Nature. Carbon dioxide is the predominant so-called "greenhouse gas" that acts as sort of an atmospheric blanket, trapping the Earth's heat. Over time, an abundance of carbon dioxide can change the global climate, according to generally accepted scientific ...

WSU study finds dioxin causes disease and reproductive problems across generations

2012-09-27
PULLMAN, Wash.—Since the 1960s, when the defoliant Agent Orange was widely used in Vietnam, military, industry and environmental groups have debated the toxicity of its main ingredient, the chemical dioxin, and how it should be regulated. But even if all the dioxin were eliminated from the planet, Washington State University researchers say its legacy will live on in the way it turns genes on and off in the descendants of people exposed over the past half century. Writing in the journal PLoS ONE, biologist Michael Skinner and members of his lab say dioxin administered ...

Inadequate cellular rest may explain effects of aging on muscles

2012-09-27
Is aging inevitable? What factors make older tissues in the human body less able to maintain and repair themselves, as in the weakening and shrinkage of aging muscles in humans? A new study from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators and collaborators at King's College London describes the mechanism behind impaired muscle repair during aging and a strategy that may help rejuvenate aging tissue by manipulating the environment in which muscle stem cells reside. The report will appear in the journal Nature and has received advance online release. Rare muscle ...

Gut bacteria could cause diabetes

2012-09-27
VIDEO: Studying gut bacteria can reveal a range of human illness. Now, new research shows that the composition of a person’s intestinal bacteria could play an important role in the development... Click here for more information. The number of people suffering from type 2 diabetes world-wide has risen rapidly in recent years, and scientists estimate that just as many people could be suffering from the illness without realising it. New research now indicates that your gut bacteria ...

New AACAP Practice Parameter on gay, lesbian, bisexual, and gender variant issues

2012-09-27
Washington D.C., September 26, 2012 – The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) is proud to announce its new Practice Parameter on issues related to and affecting gay, lesbian, bisexual, and gender variant youth. Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and gender variant children and adolescents face unique developmental challenges and stressors that can influence their mental health and wellbeing. Social issues such as stigma, bullying, and discrimination, and personal factors like internalized prejudice and feelings of being different are just a few of the concerns ...

BGI presents a metagenome-wide association study of gut microbiota in type 2 diabetes

2012-09-27
September 26, 2012, Shenzhen, China – BGI announces the online publication in the international journal Nature of a novel metagenomic study on human gut microbiota and their potential impact on type 2 diabetes (T2D), the most common form of diabetes. This work lays an important foundation for comprehensively understanding the genetic characteristics of gut microbiota and their relationship to T2D risk, as well as providing a new way of classifying microbes detected by DNA sequence. The work here also opens the way for transferring the potential value of a gut-microbiota-based ...

UF biologist discovers mammal with salamander-like regenerative abilities

2012-09-27
GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- A small African mammal with an unusual ability to regrow damaged tissues could inspire new research in regenerative medicine, a University of Florida study finds. For years biologists have studied salamanders for their ability to regrow lost limbs. But amphibian biology is very different than human biology, so lessons learned in laboratories from salamanders are difficult to translate into medical therapies for humans. New research in the Sept. 27 issue of the journal Nature describes a mammal that can regrow new body tissues following an injury. ...

MBARI researchers discover what vampire squids eat

2012-09-27
MOSS LANDING, CA — About 100 years ago, marine biologists hauled the first vampire squid up from the depths of the sea. Since that time, perhaps a dozen scientific papers have been published on this mysterious animal, but no one has been able to figure out exactly what it eats. A new paper by MBARI Postdoctoral Fellow Henk-Jan Hoving and Senior Scientist Bruce Robison shows for the first time that, unlike its relatives the octopuses and squids, which eat live prey, the vampire squid uses two thread-like filaments to capture bits of organic debris that sink down from the ...

Making the healthy choice

Making the healthy choice
2012-09-27
PASADENA, Calif.—Almost everyone knows the feeling: you see a delicious piece of chocolate cake on the table, but as you grab your fork, you think twice. The cake is too fattening and unhealthy, you tell yourself. Maybe you should skip dessert. But the cake still beckons. In order to make the healthy choice, we often have to engage in this kind of internal struggle. Now, scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have identified the neural processes at work during such self-regulation—and what determines whether you eat the cake. "We seem to ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Do sweeteners increase your appetite? New evidence from randomised controlled trial says no 

Women with obesity do not need to gain weight during pregnancy, new study suggests

Individuals with multiple sclerosis face substantially greater risk of hospitalisation and death from COVID-19, despite high rates of vaccination

Study shows obesity in childhood associated with a more than doubling of risk of developing multiple sclerosis in early adulthood

Rice Emerging Scholars Program receives $2.5M NSF grant to boost STEM education

Virtual rehabilitation provides benefits for stroke recovery

Generative AI develops potential new drugs for antibiotic-resistant bacteria

Biofuels could help island nations survive a global catastrophe, study suggests

NJIT research team discovering how fluids behave in nanopores with NSF grant

New study shows association of historical housing discrimination and shortfalls in colon cancer treatment

Social media use may help to empower plastic surgery patients

Q&A: How to train AI when you don't have enough data

Wayne State University researchers uncover potential treatment targets for Zika virus-related eye abnormalities

Discovering Van Gogh in the wild: scientists unveil a new gecko species

Small birds spice up the already diverse diet of spotted hyenas in Namibia

Imaging detects transient “hypoxic pockets” in the mouse brain

Dissolved organic matter could be used to track and improve the health of freshwaters

Indoor air quality standards in public buildings would boost health and economy, say international experts

Positive associations between premenstrual disorders and perinatal depression

New imaging method illuminates oxygen's journey in the brain

Researchers discover key gene for toxic alkaloid in barley

New approach to monitoring freshwater quality can identify sources of pollution, and predict their effects

Bidirectional link between premenstrual disorders and perinatal depression

Cell division quality control ‘stopwatch’ uncovered

Vaccine protects cattle from bovine tuberculosis, may eliminate disease

Andrew Siemion to receive the SETI Institute’s 2024 Drake Award

New study shows how the Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus enters our cells

Neoadjuvant chemotherapy proves effective for locally advanced penile squamous cell carcinoma

Study flips treatment paradigm in bilateral Wilms tumor, shows resistance to chemotherapy may point toward favorable outcomes

Doctors received approximately $12.1 billion from drug and device makers between 2013-2022

[Press-News.org] Scientists make old muscles young again in attempt to combat aging
An international team of scientists have identified for the first time a key factor responsible for declining muscle repair during aging, and discovered how to halt the process in mice with a common drug