Harvard research shows transplanted hearts can adopt recipient's biological age

Research led by Jesse Poganik at Harvard University suggests that the biological age of a transplanted heart can change based on the recipient's environment. Findings published as a preprint on bioRxiv indicate that when older donor hearts are transplanted into younger recipients, certain molecular markers, such as DNA methylation patterns, shift toward a younger profile.

Conversely, the study observed that younger hearts transplanted into older organisms tend to age more rapidly. These results, observed in both mouse models and human transplant tissue samples, suggest that an organ's cellular age is not entirely fixed. This discovery could potentially expand the available donor pool for heart transplants by allowing for the safe use of older organs in younger patients.