Natural and artefactual aneuploidy in human lymphocytes in extreme old age.

At present it is generally believed that aging is accompanied by an increase in the numbers of cells with altered chromosome sets. However, the problem of aneuploidy in extreme old age (80 years and over) has hardly been subjected to systematic investigation. The purpose of this study was to examine quantitative chromosome changes and relationship between "artefactual" and "natural" aneuploidy in subjects from 80 to 114 years of age using karyotype analyses. Chromosomes were studied in 1136 karyotypes of relatively round metaphases from 40 lymphocyte cultures obtained from 40 apparently normal subjects aged from 80 to 114 ( including 26 men and 14 women). 964 karyotypes from 48 donors aged 20 to 48 served as control. Lymphocytes were cultivation by modification method (Lezhava, 2006). It is suggested that the probability of natural aneuploidy rises substantially among elderly women; while that of artefactual aneuploidy is increased among elderly men; the problem of natural aneuploidy in males remains unclear.