The effect of donor age on the in vitro life span of cultured human arterial smooth-muscle cells.

The number of population doublings of cultured human arterial smooth-muscle cells decreased as a function of donor age (0.5 to 82 years). Cells from older donors also showed longer latent periods for outgrowth from explants. These results extend other comparable observations with human skin fibroblasts to another cell type, and may have relevance to the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis with aging in vivo.