Multi-modal profiling of peripheral blood cells across the human lifespan reveals distinct immune cell signatures of aging and longevity

• DOI: 10.1101/2022.07.06.498968
• Publication Date: 2022-07-08T02:55:12Z
• Authors: Tanya T. Karagiannis; Todd W. Dowrey; Carlos Villacorta...; Monty Montano; Eric Reed; Stacy L. Andersen; Thomas T. Perls; Stefano Monti; George J. Murphy; Paola Sebastiani
• Keywords: 0301 basic medicine; 03 medical and health sciences; 3. Good health

AbstractAge-related changes in immune cell composition and functionality are associated with multimorbidity and mortality. However, many centenarians delay the onset of aging-related disease suggesting the presence of elite immunity that remains highly functional at extreme old age. To identify immune-specific patterns of aging and extreme human longevity, we analyzed novel single cell profiles from the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of 7 centenarians (mean age 106) and publicly available single cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) datasets that included an additional 7 centenarians as well as 52 people at younger ages (20-89 years). The analysis confirmed known shifts in the ratio of lymphocytes to myeloid cells, and noncytotoxic to cytotoxic cell distributions with aging, but also identified significant shifts from CD4+T cell to B cell populations in centenarians suggesting a history of exposure to natural and environmental immunogens. Our transcriptional analysis identified cell type signaturesspecificto exceptional longevity that included genes with age-related changes (e.g., increased expression ofSTK17A, a gene known to be involved in DNA damage response)as well as genes expressed uniquely in centenarians’ PBMCs (e.g.,S100A4, part of the S100 protein family studied in age-related disease and connected to longevity and metabolic regulation). Collectively, these data suggest that centenarians harbor unique, highly functional immune systems that have successfully adapted to a history of insults allowing for the achievement of exceptional longevity.