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Clue to ageing

SCIENTISTS HAVE found the first robust genetic difference between centenarians and younger people, a finding that could lead to the discovery of a way to prevent ageing.

In a study of unrelated centenarians, researchers found that each was five times more likely than the general population to have the same mutation in the power packs — mitochondria — of cells.

That mutation, the researchers suggest, may provide a survival advantage by speeding the replication of mitochondrial DNA — thereby increasing its amount, or replacing that portion, which has been battered by ageing.

The study was conducted by Prof. Giuseppe Attardi and colleagues at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, with colleagues in Italy.

It is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Every human cell contains hundreds or, more often, thousands of mitochondrial DNA molecules.

But such DNA has a high mutation rate. Such mutations can be harmful, beneficial or neutral.

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