Muscle stem cells could retain high regenerative capacity until geriatric age, study reveals

In a recent collaboration, a group of researchers has identified a physiological mechanism in mice that could maintain the regenerative capacity of muscle stem cells until geriatric age. The regeneration of skeletal muscle depends on satellite cells in a dormant or quiescent state – a situation that can be triggered by either damage or stress to form new muscle fibers and expand in new stem cells. With aging, the regenerative capacity of these stem cells declines. Within their study, which has been published in Nature Cell Biology, the investigators found that in mice, all muscle stem cells – despite being quiescent...