The murmur of old broken heartstrings.
Although it has long been hypothesized that gene expression might become more variable or noisy during aging, direct evidence has been scarce so far. A new study reports detection, by PCR analysis of individual cells, of increased cell-to-cell variability in gene expression in aging mouse heart; moreover, a similar variability can be generated in cultured cells using oxidative stress (Bahar et al., 2006).
Tower
John
J
Molecular and Computational Biology Program, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA.
D000375:Aging / Q000235:genetics*; D000818:Animals; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D051379:Mice; D009206:Myocardium / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology*; D018384:Oxidative Stress