Researchers at the Mayo Clinic and the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio tested a combination of two drugs, dasatinib and quercetin, designed to selectively clear these lingering senescent cells from aging mice.
Transplanting a small number of senescent cells into young mice caused lasting physical dysfunction and spread senescence to nearby healthy tissue, suggesting these cells actively drive decline rather than mark it. In naturally aged mice, intermittent senolytic treatment extended post-treatment survival by 36 percent and cut the hazard of death to 65 percent of untreated mice.
The same drug combination also cleared naturally occurring senescent cells and reduced inflammatory signaling in samples of human fat tissue, suggesting the mechanism is not limited to mice. Dasatinib is an approved cancer drug and quercetin a plant compound sold as a supplement, which sped human testing along, but intermittent dosing in otherwise healthy aging people has not yet been tested at the scale needed to confirm the same lifespan effect.
Read the original study
Xu et al., Nature Medicine, 2018 · doi.org/10.1038/s41591-018-0092-9
Two old drugs found a new target.
Source
- Xu, M., Pirtskhalava, T., Farr, J. N., Weigand, B. M., Palmer, A. K., Weivoda, M. M., Inman, C. L., Ogrodnik, M. B., Hachfeld, C. M., Fraser, D. G., Onken, J. L., Johnson, K. O., Verzosa, G. C., Langhi, L. G. P., Weigl, M., Giorgadze, N., LeBrasseur, N. K., Miller, J. D., Jurk, D., . . . Kirkland, J. L. (2018). Senolytics improve physical function and increase lifespan in old age. Nature Medicine, 24(8), 1246–1256. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-018-0092-9