Decline of Bone Marrow–Derived Hematopoietic Progenitor Cell Quality During Aging in the Rat

Abstract

Several studies have shown that aging is associated with quantitative and qualitative alterations of the stem and progenitor cell compartment. The current results indicate that there is a significant age-associated decline in the proliferative capacity of rat myeloid progenitor cells. In contrast, no difference was found in the frequency of myeloid progenitor cells in the bone marrow of young versus old rats. Furthermore, a significant shift towards higher proliferative capacity of myeloid progenitors was observed after lifelong voluntary exercise. These data emphasize that aging is accompanied by a loss of proliferative capacity and that voluntary exercise could retard this process.

This project was supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), projects P16080-B05 and S9310. The authors thank Elke Schwarzenberger, Elfgard Heintz, Brigitte Poncza, Katharina Wahl, and Dr. Violeta Kubesch for their excellent technical assistance. Many thanks to Prof. Wolfgang Schwinger, Prof. Sepp Porta, and Prof. Myrtle Gordon for their kind help.

Notes

Note. Day 4 primary CFU-GM from the three groups (young, BL, 5 months, n = 12; exercise, RW, 23 months, n = 9; sedentary, S4, 23 months, n = 10) did not change with age or exercise.