Key points from article :
A study has discovered that restoring glutathione—a key antioxidant that prevents cell damage—rejuvenates old muscle stem cells.
Muscle stem cells are activated to help repair damaged tissues after injury.
They found with age, muscle stem cells in mice evolve from one population of cells into two distinct subpopulations of cells that differ in their glutathione metabolism.
The cell population with high levels of glutathione is good at muscle repair while the population with low levels of antioxidant do a poor job.
“Here, we’re honing in on glutathione metabolism as one driver of what goes wrong as we get older,” Thomas Rando, lead researcher.
“By testing drugs and other methods to restore glutathione, we are one step closer to developing therapies that enable old tissues to repair as well as young tissues,” he added.
The findings are published in Cell Metabolism and were carried out at UCLA.
