While we tend to obsess over every wrinkle we find on our skin, researchers are providing valid reasons for us to be more concerned with wrinkles we cannot see. Why can’t we see these wrinkles? Because they are deep within our cells’ nuclei, which also happens to be where our DNA is stored. University of Virginia School of Medicine researchers have found that the genesis of some unwanted effects of aging, for example, fatty liver disease, may be the result of these areas within our cells getting wrinkly—and a wrinkly cell is an inefficient cell, which prevents our genes from functioning properly. In the case of fatty liver disease, the inefficient cell causes compromised gene performance. Researchers have found that certain genes need to be turned on in the liver and off in the brain, and vice versa. When the genes are not properly turned off, an accumulation of fat can occur in the liver.
Now that researchers have discovered the problem, they say the solution may lie in the ability to smooth out these wrinkles. Fortunately, researchers have already been working on modifying viruses for beneficial health purposes. Using a virus as a delivery method to the liver was particularly interesting for scientists because of the organ’s role in detoxifying the body.
Initial attempts to deliver a protein called lamin to the effected cells in the liver have been encouraging. Lamin has the ability to smooth wrinkly nuclear membranes, which are responsible for many unwanted effects of aging. Researchers think that, with the liver’s ability to detoxify the body, treating other age-related illnesses and conditions could be possible.
“You’re going to have normal cells—normal, healthy cells—and they will appropriately express the genes that should be expressed and you’re going to eradicate the stuff that shouldn’t be there,” says Irina M. Bochkis, PhD, of UVA’s Department of Pharmacology. “Every time I give this talk to colleagues, they say, ‘Well, do you think this is a universal mechanism?’ In my opinion, I think it is.” Scientists are hopeful that further research will someday help them treat a host of metabolic diseases.
