How heart transplantation affects the body - a study
A study has shown that after transplantation, the biological age of a donor heart can change under the influence of the recipient's body. Scientists have found that the transplanted organ can partially adapt to the age of the person it was given to. The conclusions are based on experiments with mice and analysis of tissue samples from 11 patients.
A new study, reported by ScienceAlert, has shown that after heart transplantation, the biological age of the donor organ can change under the influence of the recipient's body. In the first phase, scientists worked with mice, transplanting hearts between young and old animals. Four to six months after the operation, changes in DNA methylation, a biomarker of biological age, were assessed. It turned out that the hearts of old mice, after being transplanted into young animals, acquired signs of rejuvenation, while young organs in the bodies of old mice showed faster signs of aging. The scientists then examined preserved heart tissue samples from 11 patients who had undergone transplantation. In several cases, there was a significant difference between the ages of donors and recipients. The data indicated a similar pattern: the biological characteristics of the transplanted heart corresponded more to the age of the recipient than the donor. Additionally, heart function indicators were analyzed in several hundred patients approximately one year after surgery. Certain parameters of structure and function also depended more noticeably on the recipient's age. The authors note that if the results are confirmed in larger studies, the findings could influence the criteria for selecting donor hearts. However, the work has not yet undergone peer review, and the analysis of human samples covered only 11 recipients.