Aging is associated with loss of functional potential of multiple tissue systems, and there has
been significant interest in understanding how tissue-specific cells contribute to this decline.
DNA damage accumulation has been widely associated with aging in differentiated cell
types. However, tissue-specific stem cells were once thought to be a geno-protected
population, as damage accrued in a stem cell population has the potential to be inherited by
differentiated progeny, as well as propagated within the stem cell compartment through self …