New gene activity tool measures biological age of cells and screens aging-related compounds

Researchers from Karolinska Institutet and Stockholm University have created a new tool called Pasta that predicts a cell's biological age by examining its gene activity. This tool, detailed in an Advanced Science journal article, can help identify substances that affect cellular aging.

Aging significantly increases the risk of various diseases, but current methods for measuring cellular aging are not reliable. To address this, the researchers developed Pasta, a freely available tool that calculates a cell's biological age based on gene activity patterns. The tool was trained on over 17,000 tissue samples from healthy individuals and then tested across numerous independent datasets.

One of Pasta's key advantages is its broad applicability to various tissues, cell types, and laboratory techniques. By using gene expression data—already commonly produced in numerous research studies—Pasta enables researchers to track cellular changes over time and gain insights into the aging process's underlying mechanisms.

Pasta successfully distinguished between older, senescent cells and younger, stem cell-like cells. When applied to over 3 million gene profiles from public databases containing cells exposed to thousands of drugs and genetic alterations, the tool identified compounds and signaling pathways that either accelerated or slowed down cellular aging. Some of these findings were later confirmed in laboratory experiments using human cells.

The researchers believe that Pasta will revolutionize aging research and drug discovery. Potential applications include identifying new treatment candidates for age-related diseases and cancer. However, further research is needed to translate these findings into clinical treatments.