Diminished stem-cell functions with age may be a major cause of anemias and other defects. Unfortunately, treatments that increase stem-cell function can also increase the incidence of cancers. Lifelong dietary restriction (DR) is known to decrease spontaneous cancers and lengthen lifespan. This study examines the effect of DR on the ability of bone marrow cells to repopulate irradiated recipients and produce erythrocytes and lymphocytes. In BALB/cByJ (BALB) mice, repopulating abilities decline with age; DR ameliorates this trend. In C57BL/6J (B6) and (BALB ؋ B6) F1 hybrid (F1) mice, repopulating abilities increase with age; DR maintains this increase. Hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) numbers are highly variable in aged BALB mice; however, the observed loss of marrow function results from a major loss in repopulating ability per HSC. DR greatly ameliorates this loss of function with age. In contrast, function per HSC in B6 mice is affected neither by age nor by DR. Thus, DR increases or maintains increased marrow repopulating ability with age in the 3 different genotypes tested, but effects on function per HSC depend on genotype. That DR increases or maintains stem-cell function with age, while decreasing cancer, has far-reaching health implications.
IntroductionDecline in repopulating and differentiating abilities of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) is characteristic of human diseases such as aplastic anemia and bone marrow (BM) failure. The common unexplained anemias 1 in elderly people can be caused by declining HSC functions with age. These anemias are serious diseases with high financial and personal costs. 2,3 The functional defects found in HSCs may be an example of a more generalized intrinsic loss of proliferative capacity that occurs in all aged adult stem cells. 4,5 Thus, interventions that maintain HSC function with age will help alleviate these serious diseases and benefit health.Laboratory mice provide well-recognized models in which to study hematopoietic defects. Genetic regulation of the age-related decline in BM repopulating and differentiating abilities has been demonstrated by the in vivo comparison of these abilities among mouse strains. [6][7][8][9][10] The ability of bone marrow cells (BMCs) to repopulate and produce erythrocytes and lymphocytes is reduced in old DBA/2J (D2) and old BALB/cByJ (BALB) compared with young controls. However, BM from old C57BL/6J (B6) mice actually has a greater repopulating ability than BM from young controls, 6-10 although its ability to repopulate after serial transplantation diminishes. 6,11,12 These strain-related differences are apparently the result of the underlying genetic differences in stem-cell exhaustion. 11 Because the patterns of aging differ among mouse strains, it is important to examine HSC aging in more than a single strain of mice.The maximal potential lifespan of an organism may in part be determined by the increased risk of cancer concomitant with mechanisms that can maintain stem-cell function in aging subjects. 12,13 Thus, the loss of funct...