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Comment
. 2013 Aug 14;32(16):2189-90.
doi: 10.1038/emboj.2013.162. Epub 2013 Jul 16.

Ageing of the heart reversed by youthful systemic factors!

Andrew S Brack  1
Affiliations
Comment

Ageing of the heart reversed by youthful systemic factors!

Andrew S Brack. EMBO J. .

Abstract

Age-associated changes in tissue maintenance and repair have severe consequences to human physiology. The signals and mechanisms that cause age-related tissue demise are unclear. A recently published study in Cell (Loffredo et al, 2013) proposes that blood-borne factors in the adult systemic environment are lost during ageing, which leads to cardiac hypertrophy. One such factor is GDF11. Exposure of aged mice to youthful systemic factors or GDF11 decreases cardiac hypertrophy of the heart.

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Conflict of interest statement

The author declares that he has no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
In adult mice, the presence of GDF11 in the systemic environment acts to restrain cardiac myocyte size. Loss of blood-borne GDF11 in aged mice drives cardiac myocyte hypertrophy. Exposure of aged mice to youthful systemic factors through parabiosis or injection of GDF11 reverses morphological and molecular markers (AMP and BNP) of age-induced cardiac hypertrophy.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment on

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