Less antibody diversity as we age
Studies in African killifish reveal how the immune system ages
Date:
March 28, 2022
Source:
Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing
Summary:
As we age, our immune system works less well. We become more
susceptible to infections and vaccinations no longer work as
effectively. A research team has investigated whether short-lived
killifish also undergo aging of the immune system. Indeed, they
found that as early as four months of age, killifish have less
diverse circulating antibodies compared to younger fish, which
may contribute to a generalized decrease in the immune function.
FULL STORY ==========================================================================
As we age, our immune system works less well. We become more susceptible
to infections and vaccinations no longer work as effectively. A research
team led by Dario Riccardo Valenzano investigated whether short-lived
killifish also undergo aging of the immune system. Indeed, they found that
as early as four months of age, killifish have less diverse circulating antibodies compared to younger fish, which may contribute to a generalized decrease in the immune function.
==========================================================================
The immune system must constantly respond to new attacks from pathogens
and remember them in order to be protected during the next infection. For
this purpose, B cells build an information repository and produce a
variety of antibodies that can directly recognize the pathogens.
"We wanted to know about the antibody repertoire in old age," explains
Dario Riccardo Valenzano, who led the study. "It is difficult to
study a human being's immune system over his or her entire life,
because humans live a very long time. Moreover, in humans you can only
study the antibodies in peripheral blood, as it is problematic to get
samples from other tissues. For this reason, we used the killifish. It
is very short-lived and we can get probes from different tissues."
Killifishes are the shortest-lived vertebrates that can be kept in the laboratory. They live for only three to four months, age in a time-lapse
and have become the focus of ageing research in recent years due to
these characteristics.
Less antibody diversity The researchers were able to characterize with
high accuracy all the antibodies that killifish produce. They found that
older killifish have different types of antibodies in their blood than
younger fish. They also had a lower diversity of antibodies throughout
their bodies.
"If we have fewer different antibodies as we age, this could lead to
a reduced ability to respond to infections. We now want to further
investigate why the B cells lose their ability to produce diverse
antibodies and whether they can possibly be rejuvenated in the killifish
and thus regain this ability," says Valenzano.
The research for this study was conducted at the Max Planck Institute
for Biology of Ageing and was funded by the CECAD Cluster of Excellence
for Aging Research and the Collaborative Research Center 1310 at the
University of Cologne. Dario Riccardo Valenzano is now group leader of
the research group "Evolutionary Biology / Microbiome-Host Interactions
in Aging" at the Leibniz Institute on Aging -- Fritz Lipmann Institute
(FLI) and Professor at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena.
========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
Max_Planck_Institute_for_Biology_of_Ageing. Note: Content may be edited
for style and length.
========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. William John Bradshaw, Michael Poeschla, Aleksandra Placzek,
Samuel Kean,
Dario Riccardo Valenzano. Extensive age-dependent loss of antibody
diversity in naturally short-lived turquoise killifish. eLife,
2022; 11 DOI: 10.7554/eLife.65117 ==========================================================================
Link to news story:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220328092103.htm
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