The prostates of older mice contain more luminal progenitor cells -- cells capable of generating new prostate tissue -- than the prostates of younger mice, researchers have discovered.
The observation, published in Cell Reports, helps explain why, as people age, the prostate tends to grow, leading to an increased risk for prostate cancer and other conditions.
Most organs in the body -- including the kidneys, liver and spleen -- lose mass as people age, and bone and muscle mass tend to decrease over time.
The prostate, however, typically grows with age, which is why more than half of men over age 60 have benign prostatic hyperplasia, or BPH, in which the enlarged prostate impinges on the urethra, the organ that carries urine out of the bladder.
Research had previously shown that the numbers of progenitor cells are also diminished in organs that shrink with age. Like stem cells, progenitor cells can differentiate into new cells, but they are more constrained in what type of cells they can become. For instance, prostate progenitor cells can only form prostate tissue.
Whether levels of stem cells or progenitor cells in the prostate changed with age was not previously known. In the new work, researchers compared the prostates of two groups of mice: 3-month-olds (an age comparable to human young adults) and 24-month-olds (roughly equivalent to 80 human years). The prostates of the older mice were larger and heavier, and had more cells than those of younger mice.
The researchers then isolated luminal cells -- one subset of prostate cells -- from the mice and grew them to form prostate organoids, or smaller, simplified versions of the prostates. They discovered that luminal cells from older animals formed prostate organoids just as effectively as cells from younger animals. In fact, the organoids formed from older cells tended to be larger.
"We thought it was a real possibility that older cells would have a reduced capacity to generate prostate tissue when we took them out of the prostate," said the senior author. "So it was a surprising and important finding that there's really no difference between old cells and young cells in their ability to form prostate tissue."
When the team looked more closely at the luminal cells, they discovered that older prostates contained more luminal progenitor cells. While only 6% of luminal prostate cells were progenitors in the younger mice, 21% of luminal cells in older mice were prostate progenitors.
The higher concentration of luminal progenitors, coupled with their maintained ability to form new tissue, helps explain why the prostate grows with age and why the risk of prostate cancer and benign prostatic hyperplasia increase: Both are associated with the growth of cells.
"One of the biggest questions we have now is what is causing this age-related increase in the number of luminal progenitor cells," the senior author said. "We have a few hypotheses but it remains to be seen what's really happening."
https://www.uclahealth.org/ucla-study-links-progenitor-cells-to-agerelated-prostate-growth
https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(19)30897-6
Progenitor cells linked to age-related prostate growth
- 446 views
- Added
Edited
Latest News
Using health records and not genetic data to calculate genetic links between diseases
Vasomotion is critical in clearing amyloid from the brain
Artificial intelligence (AI) to help doctors identify cancer cells
A key protein linked to ageing identified
Transporting large drug molecules into cells via nanoparticles
Other Top Stories
The importance of social interactions when choosing food
Neurons that fire alike are connected in the olfactory map
How the brain changes when mastering a new skill
Ameliorating Alzheimer's disease in mice
How human eyes process 3D motion
Protocols
Dual-Angle Protocol for Doppler Optical Coherence Tomography to Improve Retinal Blood Flow Measur…
Detection of protein SUMOylation in vivo
In vivo analysis of protein sumoylation induced by a viral protein: Detection of HCMV pp71-induce…
Determination of SUMOylation sites
miR-Selection 3'UTR Target Selection Kit
Publications
Stem-cell-ubiquitous genes spatiotemporally coordinate division through regulation of stem-cell-s…
Estimating heritability and genetic correlations from large health datasets in the absence of gen…
ConvPath: A software tool for lung adenocarcinoma digital pathological image analysis aided by a…
CSB promoter downregulation via histone H3 hypoacetylation is an early determinant of replicative…
Carboxylated branched poly(-amino ester) nanoparticles enable robust cytosolic protein delivery…
Presentations
Hypoxia Inducible Factor - 1 (HIF-1)
Intracellular Protein Degradation
Pathophysiology of Type 1 Diabetes
Plant Viruses
Regulation by changes in chromatin structure
Posters
AACC-2018-Infectious Disease
AACC-2018-Mass Spectrometry Applications
AACC-2018-Lipids/Lipoproteins
AACC-2018-Management
AACC-2018-Immunology-abstracts