Re:Scientists engineer mice genomes to lengthen their lifesp...
by lvs on Thursday December 15, 2016 @09:28PM
(#13190602)
Oh they did, in fact, but the results in WT mice were not as easy to overhype. The effects were extremely minor to nonexistent in aged wild-type animals (Fig S7 from the paper). Unfortunately, press releases and the subsequent news articles -- as usual -- have totally oversold what this paper means.
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Re:Scientists engineer mice genomes to lengthen their lifesp...
by RushAndAPush on Thursday December 15, 2016 @11:01PM
(#13190970)
So what you're saying is that the mice that didn't have their genome edited didn't have a drastic life extension? I assume the improvements only occurred in the mice that had their genomes edited to reduce Yamanaka factors because they then artificially replaced the Yamanaka factors?
Re:Scientists engineer mice genomes to lengthen their lifesp...
by lvs on Friday December 16, 2016 @01:09AM
(#13191419)
No. That's not quite what I'm saying. There was no particularly interesting effect of inducing transient expression of the Yamanaka factors on normal mice reported in this paper. It is effectively a negative result that's being reported, as it pertains to wild-type mice.
The paper primarily reports results that pertain to mice with a genetic defect that causes progeria. Mice with this defect have a shorter-than-normal lifespan.