Aging Biomarkers For Skin
From The Reporter, news of a potential biomarker of aging: "We initiated this project with the idea that perhaps there was a specific mitochondrial DNA deletion signature that would be associated with tumor development in the skin ... Sligh and colleagues were surprised to find a panel of mitochondrial DNA deletions in the tumor-free skin that was adjacent to the tumors, but not in the tumors themselves. ... The mitochondrial DNA mutations in the tumor-free skin correlated with the aging process ... It will be interesting to see if the mitochondrial DNA mutations we've found are markers of aging in other tissues or if they are specific to tissues exposed to ultraviolet light ... the newly identified biomarkers will provide another tool for studying mitochondrial damage that contributes to aging and cancer, and for screening compounds that prevent or reverse the process."
Link: http://www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/reporter/index.html?ID=4548