title: Age-dependent accumulation of alkali-labile sites in DNA of post-mitotic but not in that of mitotic rat liver cells.
abstract: The amount of spontaneous damage in the DNA of rat liver cells was measured by using the alkaline elution assay. An age-related increase of approximately 700 detectable alkali-labile sites (80%) was found for rat parenchymal liver cells; cells from 6-month-old rats contained approximately 900 alkali-labile sites per cell while cells from 36-month-old rats contained approximately 1600 alkali-labile sites. In contrast to the situation with the postmitotic parenchymal liver cells, no age-related increase in the number of alkali-labile sites was found for the non-parenchymal liver cell fraction, which has a higher mitotic activity. These results support the hypothesis that aging takes place predominantly in postmitotic cells.
authors.affiliation: TNO Institute for Experimental Gerontology, Rijswijk, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Mullaart
authors.forename: M E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Boerrigter
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Brouwer
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Berends
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Vijg
mesh_terms: D000375:Aging; D000818:Animals; D004249:DNA Damage; D005260:Female; D006863:Hydrogen-Ion Concentration; D008099:Liver / Q000166:cytology*; D008938:Mitosis; D051381:Rats