Caltech scientists have identified a common genetic mutation in people over 100 years old, a possible key to discovering a “fountain of youth”. In the study of a group of 52 Italian centenarians, the researchers found a a specific mutation called C150T transition in the mitochondrial DNA of white blood cells. Seventeen per cent of the 52 had the mutation, compared with only 3.4 per cent of 117 control subjects under the age of 99. The key mutation shifts the site at which mitochondrial DNA starts to replicate, and perhaps that may accelerate its replication, allowing the individual to replace damaged molecules faster, said Dr. Guiseppe Attardi, Caltech professor of molecular biology and an author of the study puiblished in the current issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Mitochondria are so-called “organelles” which exist inside of cells, and are thought to have resulted from a symbiotic “capture” of free-flowing mitochondria “organisms” by ancient cells. They are the “powerhouses” of modern cells and are instrumental in the generation of energy for the entire cell to use. The fact that they are found inside the human egg but not the human sperm, and are passed from cell to cell only by cell division, means that a person’s mitochondia come only from their mother and makes them a valuable marker for human migration studies.