Microarray analysis reveals similarity between CD8+CD28− T cells from young and elderly persons, but not of CD8+CD28+ T cells

• DOI: 10.1007/s10522-008-9167-1
• Publication Date: 2008-08-26T08:07:30Z
• Authors: Lutfan Lazuardi; Dietmar Herndler-...; Stefan Brunner; Gerhard T. Laschober; Günter Lepperdinger; Beatrix Grubeck-L...
• Keywords: Adult; Aged, 80 and over; Male; Aging; Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; Gene Expression Profiling; Age Factors; Reproducibility of Results; Cell Differentiation; CD8-Positive T-Lymphocytes; 03 medical and health sciences; 0302 clinical medicine; CD28 Antigens; T-Lymphocyte Subsets; Cluster Analysis; Humans; Female; Immunologic Memory; Aged; Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis

We isolated highly purified CD8+CD28+ and CD8+CD28- T cell populations from healthy young and elderly persons for gene expression profiling using Affymetrix oligonucleotide microarrays. We demonstrate that the gene expression profile of CD8+CD28- T cells is very similar in young and elderly persons. In contrast, CD8+CD28+ in elderly differ from CD8+CD28+ in young persons. Hierarchical clustering revealed that CD8+CD28+ in elderly are located between CD8+CD28+ in young and CD8+CD28- (young and old) T cells regarding their differentiation state. Our study demonstrates a dichotomy of gene expression levels between CD8+CD28+ T cells in young and elderly persons but a similarity between CD8+CD28- T cells in young and elderly persons. As CD8+CD28+ T cells from elderly and young persons are distinct due to a different composition of the population, these results suggest that the gene expression profile does not depend on chronological age but depends on the differentiation state of the individual cell types.