Certain genes and pathways that are linked to the regulation of splicing factors could play an important role in the aging process, found study led by the University of Exeter Medical School.// The study, published in the FASEB Journal, was //conducted in human cells in laboratories. Aged, or senescent, cells are thought to represent a driver of the aging process and other groups have shown that if such cells are removed in animal models, many features of aging can be corrected. This new work from the Exeter team found that stopping the activity of the pathways ERK and AKT, which communicate signals from outside the cell to the genes, reduced the number of senescent cells in in cultures grown in the laboratory. Furthermore, they found the same effects from knocking out the activity of just two genes controlled by these pathways - FOX01 and ETV6.