Are your cells aging with you? Neurons lose their status as the body’s oldest cells

Researchers said they’ve found “surprising evidence” that certain organs in mice contain a mix of young and old cells. They expect the discovery to advance the science of aging.

The brain, liver and pancreas contain populations of cells and proteins that are as old as nerve cells, long considered to be the body’s oldest.

“We were quite surprised to find cellular structures that are essentially as old as the organism they reside in,” explained the study’s senior author, Martin Hetzer, Ph.D., of the Salk Institute. “This suggests even greater cellular complexity than we previously imagined and has intriguing implications for how we think about the aging of organs,” he added.

Due to technical limitations, the lifespan of cells outside those in the brain has been difficult to determine. But new visualizing technologies used in this study potentially could be applied to nearly any tissue in the body, the researchers concluded.

“This opens new doors for studying all cells, tissues and organs in normal and in disease states,” Hetzer said. “The ultimate goal is to utilize these mechanisms to prevent or delay age-related decline of organs with limited cell renewal.”

The study was published in Cell Metabolism.