Domestic researchers developed a technology to detect subtle changes in tissues to identify and predict aging and chronic diseases more quickly.
Professor Park Jong-eun of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and lead researcher Kim Cheon-ah of the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB) noted on the 12th, "We developed a technology called 'FiNi-seq (Fibrotic Niche enrichment sequencing)' that captures locally occurring changes in aging liver tissues and analyzes them at the single-cell level."
Aging and chronic diseases appear as subtle tissue changes accumulate over a long period. In the case of liver tissues, regeneration is delayed due to aging, leading to the formation of fibrotic niches. Decoding the genetic changes associated with this is FiNi-seq. If fibrosis is detected early, diseases can be found in advance, but it occurs at the single-cell level, making it difficult to confirm or analyze visually.
The research team developed a method to selectively concentrate areas in liver tissues where regeneration is delayed and fibrosis is accumulated due to aging. Through this process, they were able to confirm fibrotic-related endothelial cells and fibroblasts interacting with immunity, which had been challenging to capture with existing technologies.
Using FiNi-seq technology, they confirmed that specific cells in fibrotic areas of liver tissues secondarily age their surrounding environment, thereby widening the aged environment. Also, it was revealed that endothelial cells lose their inherent functions and induce immune responses, and fibroblasts that interact with immune cells are involved in tissue regeneration, inflammatory responses, and chronic fibrosis.
Professor Park Jong-eun stated, "This analysis technology can early capture delicate changes occurring in the early stages of aging or chronic diseases, and it is expected to play a significant role in finding effective treatment points in the future," adding that "the research will expand to chronic diseases in other organs such as the lungs and kidneys, as well as various liver disease models."
The research findings were published in the international journal 'Nature Aging' on the 5th of last month.
References
Nature Aging (2025), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43587-025-00857-7