What this means
Donor hearts seemed to shift toward the age of the person receiving them, in mice and in patients. The study shows a link, but it does not show that this would make transplants safer or easier.
Plain-English summary written by an AI model from the abstract. The original is below.
- Who it was tested in
- Mice and human heart transplant patients
- Kind of research
- A study
The science
- Original title
- Transplanted hearts assimilate the recipient's biological age.
- Authors
- Poganik JR, Matsunaga T, Tyshkovskiy A et al.
- Journal
- bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology
- Published
- Sep 24, 2026
- Study type
- Study
- PMID
- 42779719 ↗
Abstract
Background
Despite the growing demand for transplantation, a shortage of donor organs persists, limiting access to this lifesaving procedure. To meet the increasing demand, organs are frequently transplanted across an age discrepancy between donor and recipients.
What they did
We delineated biological age dynamics in heterochronic heart transplants performed in both mice and patients. We carried out multiomic profiling and applied advanced biomarkers of aging to understand the interactions between the transplanted organ and the host.
What they found
We show that the biological age of experimental heart transplants rapidly assimilates the age of recipients. Interestingly, this effect was limited to the grafted tissue without reciprocal effects on systemic biological age of the recipient. These effects were confirmed at the level of DNA methylation and gene expression. Extending our findings clinically using both omics and functional analyses, we show that the biological age of heterochronically transplanted hearts is strongly associated with the age of the recipient, rather than the donor, confirming the clinical relevance of our experimental findings. These data identify the systemic environment as a driving force on tissue biological age. The rejuvenation of older organs in young recipients suggests novel approaches to organ allocation that may expand the pool of transplantable organs.
The authors' abstract, grouped under plain headings from its own section labels.
Poganik JR, Matsunaga T, Tyshkovskiy A et al. Transplanted hearts assimilate the recipient's biological age. bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology. 2026. doi:10.64898/2026.09.15.751836. PMID: 42779719. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42779719/