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Clearing out aged cells with senolytics can relieve jaw pain

Senolytics for cartilage and bone regeneration in jaw joints, proven effective in mice

07-Jul-2021

Key points from article :

Killing off aged cells might be the secret to healing jaw pain.

Joint deterioration seems related to old, damaged cells that refuse to die.

Treating mice with a combination of two senolytics (dasatinib and quercetin) removed senescent cells in the jaw joints of old mice.

Dasatinib removes senescent cells from cartilage and bones; Quercetin goes after senescent cells in blood vessels and skin.

Gave this combination to 24-month-old mice (equivalent to 70 to 80-year-old humans) thrice every 2 weeks for six weeks.

After the treatment, cells in the jaw joints looked more like the cells of 4-month-old mice (~15 to 20-year-old humans).

Cartilage was thicker and the bone smoother, making the joints look like those of much younger animals.

Rigorous large-scale clinical trials must be done before the drugs can be safely used.

“We are trying to slow down the whole aging process, to make 80-year-old people look like 50-year-olds,” - Ming Xu, corresponding author.

Study by UConn published in Aging Cell.

Mentioned in this article:

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Aging Cell

Scientific Journal devoted to age related diseases.

Ming Xu

Assistant Professor of Genetics and Genome Sciences at UConn Center on Aging

University of Connecticut (UConn)

Public research university.

Topics mentioned on this page:
Senescent Cells, Musculoskeletal