US EditionClonal Tracing with Somatic Epimutations Reveals Dynamics of Blood Ageing
- Scientists published a study in Nature on May 22, 2025, revealing how blood stem cells, called clones, dominate blood production with age in humans and mice.
- The study followed changes in DNA methylation barcodes that track stem cell descendants, showing that many clones expand and outcompete others from around age 50.
- These dominant clones prefer producing myeloid immune cells linked to chronic inflammation, which may contribute to diseases like blood cancer and heart disease.
- Dr. Lars Velten emphasized that to advance from standard anti-ageing approaches to more targeted and personalized treatments for ageing, tools like EPI-Clone are essential.
- The findings suggest doctors could detect unhealthy blood ageing years before symptoms and explore therapies to slow, reverse, or rejuvenate blood ageing by targeting problematic clones.
11 Articles
11 Articles
Clonal tracing with somatic epimutations reveals dynamics of blood ageing
Current approaches used to track stem cell clones through differentiation require genetic engineering1,2 or rely on sparse somatic DNA variants3,4, which limits their wide application. Here we discover that DNA methylation of a subset of CpG sites reflects cellular differentiation, whereas another subset undergoes stochastic epimutations and can serve as digital barcodes of clonal identity. We demonstrate that targeted single-cell profiling of D…
One in two living people will develop a blood-related disease. They will be mainly cardiovascular ailments, but also cancer or deficiencies of the immune system. It is a calculation made by molecular biologist Lars Velten, who works at the Centre for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona trying to unravel the many riddles that still exist about how blood evolves as we age and why some people will suffer those life-threatening diseases and others will …
'Barcodes' written into DNA reveal how blood ages
A study in the journal Nature explains how age reshapes the blood system. In both humans and mice, a few stem cells, or "clones," outcompete their neighbors and gradually take over blood production. The blood stem cell reservoir shrinks and becomes dominated by clones which show a preference for producing myeloid cells, immune cells linked to chronic inflammation.
The discovery, important for anti-aging and signed by scientists from the Center for Genomic Regulation (CRG) and the Institute for Biomedical Research (IRB Barcelona), was possible after a study with donors of marrow and mice. In both of them, blood stem cells age reducing their diversity and favoring associated types or “clones” that lead to chronic inflammation, changes that are “almost universal” from the age of 60.
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