Mutations Found In 115 Year Old Woman's Blood Could Help Unlock Secrets Of Aging
http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-me ... rets-aging
Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper died at the ripe old age of 115 in 2005, making her one of the longest lived humans on record. For a woman her age she was also in considerably good health until shortly before she passed away. She was also kind enough to donate her body to science and scientists have been eager to find out more about her, which may help to increase our understanding of ageing. In particular, researchers based at the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam were keen to know more about the accumulation of mutations in somatic cells as we age.
In the study, which has been published in the journal Genome Research, the team used deep whole-genome sequencing and found 450 somatic mutations within her healthy white blood cells. Furthermore, these mutations were enriched in noncoding regions that are not evolutionarily conserved and appeared to be harmless passenger mutations, unlike those associated with disease.
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