Restoring Cellular Recycling Helps the Body Clear Harmful Zombie Cells
Researchers identified a recycling defect that lets senescent cells evade immune clearance and build up with age, the study found.
- Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine published a study today in Nature Aging identifying how declining chaperone-mediated autophagy allows "zombie cells" to accumulate and evade immune clearance in aging organisms.
- Senescent cells, often called "zombie cells," stop dividing but persist in tissues, contributing to chronic inflammation and disease. Macrophages normally remove them, but age-related changes in CMA impair this clearance process.
- Experiments involving aged mice showed that young cells ramp up CMA activity when becoming senescent, while old cells maintain low levels, preventing immune recognition of the buildup.
- Treatment with a compound called CA77.1 restored macrophage function in mice, reducing zombie cell accumulation and fibrosis in several organs by boosting CMA activity.
- Findings point to a potential therapeutic strategy for age-related neurodegenerative and metabolic diseases, as restoring the body's natural recycling process could provide safer treatments than senolytic drugs.
13 Articles
13 Articles
'Zombie Cells' Build Up As We Age. Researchers Now Think They Know Why
As we get older, our bodies become less resilient. That might mean we move less throughout the day and face a higher risk of multimorbidity (having multiple chronic diseases at once).One of the reasons for this change may be that senescent cells, sometimes called “zombie” cells, start accumulating in our body over time. These cells secrete certain molecules that can “contribute to chronic inflammation and ageing-related diseases” if left to buil…
Researchers from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the United States have revealed a cellular mechanism that can help explain the cause of the accumulation of hierarchic cells as they age, which are living cells that stop splitting or performing their natural functions, and can contribute to chronic inflammation and some diseases associated with ageing.
Researchers studying ageing in mice found that declining cellular recycling helps 'zombie cells' evade immune clearance; restoring the process improved their removal and reduced age-related inflammation
Researchers studying ageing in mice have found that a decline in chaperone-mediated autophagy (CMA), a cellular recycling process, helps “zombie cells” accumulate by weakening the immune system’s ability to clear them. Restoring CMA reduced senescent-cell buildup, inflammation and fibrosis in mice, pointing to a possible new approach to age-related diseases.
Restoring cellular recycling helps the body clear harmful zombie cells
As we grow older, our bodies accumulate "zombie cells"-living cells that have stopped dividing or functioning normally-but linger in our tissues, contributing to chronic inflammation and age-related diseases.
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