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If we let it age naturally, we fold and lose at least some hair. Both phenomena gave rise to gigantic industries to the extent of our consternation. Even the elders were sensitive to the idea of having shiny scalps: the Roman emperor Domitian, who ruled from 81 to 96, was obsessed with the hairstyle and wore a wig. But with all due respect to the truth in advertising, nothing has ever reversed this process – until now. In the mouse. In Alabama.
Dr. Keshav Singh of the University of Alabama and his colleagues caused accelerated aging in mice; then they reversed it. They caused this by mutating a specific gene in the nuclear genome of the cell that controls the functionality of cellular mitochondria, they say in a groundbreaking article published Saturday in the journal Nature Death Cell and Disease. Mitochondria are sub-cellular structures that produce energy.
When mitochondria were made dysfunctional, during the weeks of the study, the skin of the mouse became increasingly wrinkled, females more than males, for some reason. The mice also had a palpable loss of fur, and during the eight weeks they were left to cook with dysfunctional mitochondria, their skin showed marked signs of inflammation and their movements slowed down.
All are classic signs of intrinsic aging, that is, they are not caused by sunbathing or smoking mice.
Next, scientists restored mitochondrial function ("disabling" the gene that messed up mitochondrial function in the first place). The mice found their smooth skin and their beautiful thick fur, to the point of becoming visually indistinguishable from normal healthy mice, say scientists.
"To our knowledge, this observation is unprecedented," says Singh.
Scientists did not seek to shed light on the scourge of baldness. Scientists had begun to study how the mutation in mitochondrial DNA affects the "whole animal" you or the mouse.
Mitochondria are so essential to our well-being that a change in them can kill us. The mutation in our mitochondrial DNA is known to cause diseases that we do not yet know how to cure.
Regardless of the mutation, our mitochondrial function decreases with age. Scientists suspect that even diabetes, heart disease, age-related neurological disorders and even cancer can lead to depletion of mitochondrial DNA.
Thus, scientists in Alabama devised a mouse in which they could effectively render the mitochondria dysfunctional and then reverse the effect. They wanted to see the consequences on the body as a whole.
Lo: The omnipresent depletion of mitochondrial DNA has made bald mice and made their skin wrinkled. Then they reversed it and again, the skin was smoothed and the fur repelled. Not a bad trick for the very patient.
"Few changes were observed in other organs when the mutation was induced, suggesting an important role for mitochondria in the skin compared to other tissues," write the scientists.
Singh himself admits to being surprised by the result, and suggests that the mouse model could lead to drugs that increase the missing mitochondrial function, to treat not only baldness and wrinkling but also deadly diseases.
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