Aging is associated with a global decline in stem cell function. To date, several strategies have been proposed to rejuvenate aged stem cells: most of these result in functional improvement of the tissue where the stem cells reside, but the impact on the lifespan of the whole organism has been less clearly established. Here, we review some of the most recent work dealing with interventions that improve the regenerative capacity of aged somatic stem cells in mammals and that might have important translational possibilities. Overall, we underscore that somatic stem cell rejuvenation represents a strategy to improve tissue homeostasis upon aging and present some recent approaches with the potential to affect health span and lifespan of the whole organism.
Keywords: Cdc42; autophagy; calorie restriction; health span; lifespan; parabiosis; partial reprogramming; senolytic; stem cell aging; stem cell rejuvenation.
© 2024 The Authors. FEBS Letters published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Federation of European Biochemical Societies.