Healthy blood cells of 115-year-old woman show hundreds of mutations

      According to MLT's article, in 2005, a 115-year old woman died and became the oldest person ever to donate her body to science. Now, researchers who analyzed the healthy blood cells in her body say they have identified over 400 genetic mutations, suggesting such lesions are mostly harmless in our bodies over a lifetime. It is explained that very little is known about mutations in the bodies of healthy people. Stem cells in our bone marrow are constantly dividing to create new blood cells, but the researchers note that the process of cell division introduces errors, and the dividing cells can acquire genetic mutations. In patients with blood cancers, hundreds of mutations have been found but, it is not clear whether healthy white blood cells also contain mutations.To be more conclusive,  researchers utilized whole genome sequencing of healthy white blood cells from the 115-year-old woman to determine whether mutations do, in fact, build up there.
    
      The 115 year old woman did not have any symptoms of hematological illnesses, the researchers say, and add that an autopsy showed she "did not suffer from vascular or dementia-related pathology." Results showed that there were over 400 somatic mutations ,  in the white blood cells that were not found in her brain. In fact,the mutations they found were mostly in non-coding regions of the genome that have not previously been linked with disease, but they were in "mutation-prone" areas, such as "methylated cytosine DNA bases and solvent-accessible stretches of DNA." One of the researcher's concluded that in human longevity, future studies need to investigate whether stem cell exhaustion is a likely cause of death at very old ages.

     It is amazing what researcher's can find when people donate their bodies to science. It helps us understand diseases and help further our advancements in technology to develop cures and/or better understanding of mutations we sinmply cannot explain.It is truly interesting how results showed over 400 somatic mutations (those that are not passed on to offspring and do not lead to disease) in her blood cells. They also found that the white blood cell telomeres were 17 times shorter than those in the brain.

For more information on stem cells and aging please visit: http://www.agein.com/would-you-try-stem-cells-controversial-anti-aging-solution-to-look-younger-3360