Researchers develop an antibody that works to delay aging
Over the years, large amounts of aged cells accumulate in tissues. A team of researchers has designed an antibody capable of eliminating these aged cells that could help prevent age-related diseases and delay aging.
Some people age worse than others. And we are not just talking about wrinkles. Their arteries deteriorate earlier, their glucose regulation mechanism loses efficiency. This puts them at greater risk of developing age-related diseases such as hypertension or diabetes, as well as Alzheimer's disease or cancer.
Over the years, each organism responds in a different way to the damage that cells receive over the course of a lifetime. And some bodies repair themselves better than others, which explains why some people age worse. The process of cellular aging is called senescence: cells stop dividing, but they do not die. Over time, large quantities of aged or senescent cells accumulate in the body's tissues.
Now, researchers at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) and the University of Leicester (UK) have developed a new treatment to remove old cells from tissues and thus slow down the aging process. In fact, what they have designed is an antibody that works like an intelligent pump capable of recognizing specific proteins on the surface of these aged or senescent cells.
Once recognized, it latches onto them and applies a drug that eliminates them without affecting the rest, thus minimizing potential side effects. The results of the study published in Scientific Reports open the door to developing effective treatments to delay the progression of diseases associated with aging.
The discovery could also help to delay the aging process itself to improve the person's quality of life.
Antibody-based therapies are already used in cancer treatments. In these cases, the antibodies target specific proteins on the surface of cancer cells. Now the same has been done but with senescent, i.e. aged cells.
The search for drugs that stop aging is not new. Previous animal experiments have shown that if these aged cells are eliminated with drugs, the progression of the disease and the degeneration that comes with age can be halted.
For this purpose, drugs called senolytics were used. The drug developed by this team is a second-generation senolytic drug, which is highly specific and remote-controlled. It is a monoclonal antibody that has been trained to recognize and bind to senescent cells.
The drug, says the UOC, could be administered when the first symptoms of diseases such as Alzheimer's, type 2 diabetes, Parkinson's, arthritis, cataracts, or some tumors appear. And in the long term, it could also be used to achieve healthier aging.