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Ageing

Old blood stem cells feel the stress

Nature volume 512, pages 140–141 (2014)Cite this article

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Ageing is accompanied by deterioration in the haematopoietic stem cells that are responsible for regenerating the blood system. Cellular stress in the aged stem cells could be a cause of this decline. See Letter p.198

Tissue renewal is a fundamental process that relies on the regenerative capacity of long-lived, self-renewing stem cells. But during ageing, stem-cell function deteriorates. The haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) that maintain all blood-cell lineages are, like other long-lived stem cells, prone to accumulating DNA damage as they age. In the case of HSCs, the damage can reduce the cells' ability to regenerate blood-cell lineages, and can increase the risk of diseases such as leukaemia. But little is known about what causes the damage and how it contributes to the decline of old HSCs. On page 198 of this issue, Flach et al.1 report that damage is caused mostly by cellular stress that arises as a result of inefficient DNA replication, and they point to the probable molecular defects involved.

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Figure 1: Replication stress in ageing cells.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jiri Bartek and Zdenek Hodny are at the Institute of Molecular Genetics of the ASCR, v.v.i., Prague 142 20, Czech Republic.,

    Jiri Bartek & Zdenek Hodny

  2. J.B. is also at the Danish Cancer Society Research Center, Genome Integrity Unit, Copenhagen DK-2100, Denmark.,

    Jiri Bartek

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  1. Jiri Bartek
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  2. Zdenek Hodny
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Correspondence to Jiri Bartek or Zdenek Hodny.

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Bartek, J., Hodny, Z. Old blood stem cells feel the stress. Nature 512, 140–141 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13652

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