Protein synthetic errors do not increase during aging of cultured human fibroblasts.

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Abstract
To test the error catastrophe theory of aging the error frequency of protein synthesis in several strains of cultured human fibroblasts was determined at early and late passage. Error rates were calculated from analysis of native and substituted actins on 2-dimensional gels of cellular proteins after induction of mistranslation by histidine starvation in the presence of histidinol. Early-passage cells from fetal, young and old donors and cells from subjects with the Hutchinson-Gilford and Werner syndromes of accelerated aging had similar error frequencies. Late-passage cells from fetal, young and old normal donors had similar or lower error frequencies than corresponding early-passage cells. No correlation was observed between error frequency, donor age or maximal life span in vitro. An immortal cell line, SV40-transformed WI38 fibroblasts was also examined. These cells had a significantly elevated rate of mistranslation (2.8 .+-. 0.2 .times. 10-4) (.+-. SEM) compared to their untransformed counterpart WI38 (0.6 .+-. 0.1 .times. 10-4) or diploid cells combined (1.1 .+-. 0.1 .+-. 10-4). The data fail to support the error catastrophe theory of aging.