Editor's Summary

7 June 2007

Stem cells and ageing

Two groups this week report work on an important hypothesized mechanism of ageing — a diminished capacity to maintain tissue homeostasis due to deficiencies in DNA damage repair. Nijnik et al. show that DNA damage accumulates in stem cells under physiological conditions in vivo as a result of malfunction of DNA repair by the non-homologous end-joining pathway, leading to adult stem cell exhaustion over time. Rossi et al. find age-related diminution of stem cell function in three different genomic maintenance-deficient settings.

Article: DNA repair is limiting for haematopoietic stem cells during ageing

Anastasia Nijnik, Lisa Woodbine, Caterina Marchetti, Sara Dawson, Teresa Lambe, Cong Liu, Neil P. Rodrigues, Tanya L. Crockford, Erik Cabuy, Alessandro Vindigni, Tariq Enver, John I. Bell, Predrag Slijepcevic, Christopher C. Goodnow, Penelope A. Jeggo & Richard J. Cornall

doi:10.1038/nature05875

Abstract | Full Text | PDF (1,232K) | Supplementary information