ABINGTON, Pa. -- A Penn State Abington biology professor and two student researchers have identified a cellular pathway that might improve outcomes in elderly populations suffering from heat-related illness or hyperthermia.
Steven A. Bloomer, assistant professor of biology, mentored Abington students Leslee Sholomskas and Kate Roche. A manuscript based on their work, "Aging impairs induction of redox factor-1 after heat stress: A potential mechanism for heat-induced liver injury," has been accepted for publication by The International Journal of Physiology, Pathophysiology and Pharmacology.
"Our experiments model what humans would experience during a heat wave - repeated exposures to hot environmental temperatures, resulting in increases in body temperature or hyperthermia," said Bloomer, whose research into aging and heat-related illness traces back more than a decade.
"We demonstrated that aging impairs the ability to increase levels of the protective protein redox factor-1 (Ref-1) after hyperthermia," he explained. "The result suggests the inability to increase Ref-1 contributes in part to the decline in physiological stress tolerance that is typically observed with aging."
The cellular pathway the researchers identified could be targeted therapeutically to improve outcomes in the elderly since they tend to suffer more severe heat-related illness than younger populations.