Abstract
HUMAN diploid fibroblasts cannot be propogated indefinitely in culture1. Longevity experiments with fibroblasts grown from skin biopsies from individuals of different age show that the greater the age of the donor, the shorter the life-span of their cells in culture2–4. Patients suffering from Werner's syndrome age prematurely and have an average lifespan of 46 yr (ref. 5). Martin, Epstein and Sprague4 established primary fibroblast cultures from skin specimens from four such patients and discovered that these could be subcultured only 4–11 times before growth ceased. This compares with an average lifespan of 32 subcultures for skin fibroblasts from normal individuals in the same decades of life4. We show here that changes which occur in the enzyme glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) during the senescence of normal fibroblasts6, also occur during the premature senescence of cells from a patient with Werner's syndrome.
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HOLLIDAY, R., PORTERFIELD, J. & GIBBS, D. Premature ageing and occurrance of altered enzyme in Werner's syndrome fibroblasts. Nature 248, 762–763 (1974). https://doi.org/10.1038/248762a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/248762a0
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