Age from blood

2011/02/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Bioteknologia
• Anatomia/Fisiologia

Some white blood cells, T cells, may become a forensic instrument. Researchers from the Erasmus University of Rotterdam have shown that they serve to know the approximate age of people. According to the journal Current Biology, the method developed may present an error of about nine years. It is not, therefore, a very precise system, but at least allows the distribution of people for decades.

A peculiarity of T cells has served to develop a system of recognition to the age of researchers. To know the pathogenic organisms that penetrate the body and, in general, strangers, T cells have multiple receptors in the skin. To create these special receptors, T cells reorganize part of their DNA, cutting and pasting DNA sequences. Along the way, however, some fragments of DNA are left out of DNA forming circles.

Scientists have been able to count DNA circles in blood and have determined age based on it. In fact, as it ages less T cells are produced, since in the organ that produces them, in the thymus, the proportion of fat cells increases. The correlation between age and the number of DNA circles is not entirely perfect, but it is, as we have said, separable at intervals of about ten years.