GoKawiil
Tech News
A new bioRxiv preprint analysed DNA methylation patterns in transplanted human hearts and found that, months after surgery, the tissue's biological age markers shifted to resemble the recipient's age rather than the donor's. Researchers observed this effect in both directions: young hearts placed in older bodies appeared to age faster, while older hearts in younger bodies appeared to grow biologically younger.
Researchers led by Jesse Poganik at Harvard University report, in a bioRxiv preprint not yet peer-reviewed, that young donor hearts age faster once placed in older recipients, while older hearts appear to become biologically younger when transplanted into younger bodies. The team reached this conclusion by grafting extra hearts between mice of different ages and analyzing DNA methylation patterns linked to cellular ageing, and note similar patterns were examined in human transplant tissue.
Researchers led by Jesse Poganik at Brigham and Women's Hospital transplanted young hearts into middle-aged mice and middle-aged hearts into young mice, implanting the extra organ in the neck to compare it with the original. Using three molecular 'aging clocks' to measure biological age, the team found that transplanted hearts largely took on the biological age profile of the recipient rather than retaining the age of the donor, a pattern also suggested by records from human heart transplant recipients.