- Researchers found a patterned epigenetic drift in intestinal stem cells that increases with age and appears in many colon cancers
- Ageing in the gut looked patchy, with some crypts showing older molecular profiles than neighbouring areas
- In lab grown mini gut tissues, restoring iron handling or key growth signals slowed or partly reversed the drift
The gut replaces its lining rapidly, driven by stem cells sitting in tiny structures called crypts.
Over time, those stem cells pick up molecular changes that can alter which genes are switched on or off.
A study in Nature Aging reports that these changes are not random.
Instead, they follow a recognisable pattern the researchers call ACCA drift, short for Aging and Colon Cancer Associated drift.
The team analysed intestinal tissue across age groups and compared it with colon cancer samples.
The same drift signature that built up with age also appeared in a large proportion of colon cancers they examined, suggesting that ageing biology can create conditions that make cancer development easier.
One striking detail is how uneven ageing appeared within the gut.
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Because each crypt is effectively a clone descended from a single stem cell, changes in that stem cell can spread across the crypt.
Over years, the gut can become a mosaic of relatively younger and older crypts, with some regions potentially more vulnerable to dysfunction.
The researchers also propose a biological driver: changes in iron handling inside ageing cells.
Lower availability of iron in the right cellular compartment can reduce activity of enzymes involved in removing certain DNA methylation marks, allowing these marks to build up and silence genes involved in tissue maintenance.
They also point to inflammation and weakening of Wnt signalling as accelerators of this process.
The hopeful part is that, in organoid experiments, the drift could be slowed and in some cases partly reversed by restoring iron uptake or boosting Wnt signalling, suggesting epigenetic ageing may be more adjustable than previously thought.
Bowel cancer risk is influenced by several overlapping factors including age, weight and inflammation.
This study is early stage biology, but it strengthens the idea that long term gut health is shaped by ageing processes deep inside cells.
