The DNA of the Sardinians reveals how blood changes with age .
A genetic study conducted on almost 400 Sardinians who have regularly donated blood to science as part of the SardiNIA research project has in fact shown how in the human body the production of blood cells changes over time , due to the mutations that over the years they affect blood stem cells, altering their proliferation and sometimes causing tumors .
The results, useful for the fight against cancer and aging diseases , are published in Nature by the Wellcome Sanger Institute with the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute and the European Institute of Bioinformatics (EBI) which is part of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory ( EMBL).
All human cells - says the research - accumulate mutations in the DNA over time, some of which favor proliferation. This phenomenon is common in blood stem cells and results in the growth of populations of cells that carry the same mutations and are referred to as 'clones' . This process of 'clonal hematopoiesis' becomes ubiquitous with age and promotes the development of blood cancers and other diseases related to aging. To study it better, the researchers then traced the evolution of nearly 700 clones of blood cells isolated from 385 people over 55 who, as part of the SardiNIA study, regularly donated blood over a period of time that arrives. up to 16 years.
The DNA sequencing extracted from the blood samples shows that 92% of the clones grew at an exponential rate that remained stable over the study period.
The nature of the mutated gene in each clone determines the growth rate. After 'photographing' the behavior of the clones in old age, the researchers used mathematical models to reconstruct their growth throughout human life.
And so it turned out that the behavior of the clones changes dramatically with age depending on the mutated gene.
(Unioneonline / lf)