By Hannah Walters – Nature Aging
Now, a study has examined how muscle stem cells and their communication with the niche changes with age. Firstly, muscle tissue from young and old mice was characterized using single-cell RNA sequencing to examine how aging affects the resident cell populations. “Our data show that age-related muscle stem cell loss is not random, and affects subpopulations of cells differently. One subpopulation that is retained in aged mice has increased expression of stress response and antioxidant genes, which may have allowed these cells to survive in a stressful environment”, says corresponding author of the study Vahab Soleimani.