Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Lamin A and aging

Some time ago, I posted a comment about a possible new therapy for Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria (HGPS). In a later post, I also pointed out that the study of HGPS and other progeroid syndromes has probably taught us all that they could. I didn't put it in words, but it was clear that I didn't expect any clues about anti-aging treatments coming from the study of these syndromes.

Now I am happy to say that I may be wrong.

Today I found at the Science magazine website a news link titled "Lamin A and aging" that leads to an extremely short abstract. I don't have access to the whole article, but it seems that it is about parallel molecular processes going on in cells of old subjects and in cells of people suffering a progeroid syndrome. For what it says, it is something about truncated messenger RNAs. The abstract doesn't say anything about HGPS, but the link that points to it suggests that the paper is about this specific ailment.
If it gets confirmed, it may be a very promising finding.

We are living in exciting times!

A link to the abstract is here.