Nicoletta Lanese is the health channel editor at Live Science and was previously a news editor and staff writer at the site. She holds a graduate certificate in science communication from UC Santa Cruz and degrees in neuroscience and dance from the University of Florida. Her work has appeared in The Scientist, Science News, the Mercury News, Mongabay and Stanford Medicine Magazine, among other outlets. Based in NYC, she also remains heavily involved in dance and performs in local choreographers' work.
"Zombie cells" that lurk in the body and contribute to age-related diseases make small, strange molecules not seen in normal cells. The exact function of these"cryptic" molecules remains a mystery, but now, scientists think they may know why zombies build them in the first place, The Scientist reported .
In addition to spewing inflammatory molecules, senescent cells undergo a process called"cryptic transcription," according to The Scientist. This process describes when cells erroneously use supershort snippets of DNA — mere fragments of genes — to build tiny molecules of RNA, DNA's molecular cousin. Normally, cells use RNA as blueprints to build proteins, among other things.
Learning why zombie cells undergo cryptic transcription and how this impacts aging could be key to scientists' overall understanding of the aging process, as well as their attempts to prolong life span and prevent age-related disease. In a new study, published March 31 in the journal Nature Aging , Sen and her colleagues started to unravel the"why" behind this phenomenon.
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