Zheng Hong-Yi, Zhang Ming-Xu, Pang Wei, Zheng Yong-Tang
School of Life Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China; Key Laboratory of Animal Models and Human Disease Mechanisms of the Chinese Academy of Sciences & Yunnan Province, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, Yunnan 650223, China.
Key Laboratory of Animal Models and Human Disease Mechanisms of the Chinese Academy of Sciences & Yunnan Province, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, Yunnan 650223, China; Kunming College of Life Science, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, Yunnan 650204, China.
Exp Gerontol. 2014 Jul;55:113-9. doi: 10.1016/j.exger.2014.04.004. Epub 2014 Apr 16.
The elderly usually suffer from increased morbidity and mortality due to infectious diseases, and this process may be attributed to diminishing immune protection with age. This phenomenon is commonly referred to as immunosenescence. However, this theory is still not well defined. Non-human primates serve as a favorable model to facilitate the study in aging of the immune system. Here, we investigated the phenotypic features of T- and B-cell aging in peripheral blood from Chinese rhesus macaques, which included (1) a decrease of CD4/CD8 ratio; (2) a loss of naïve T cells accompanied with elevated proliferation and expansion of effector memory subset; (3) a reduction in B cell numbers and a shift from naïve B cells towards memory phenotype; and (4) increased levels of PD-1 expression in T cells and CD95 expression in B cells. Moreover, an accelerated decline in CD4(+) T cells and naïve T cells was found in male macaques, giving them a more severe immune risk profile. These data indicated that Chinese rhesus macaques share a significant homology with humans in phenotypic aging of adaptive immunity, and may be an appropriate animal model for human aging research.
老年人通常因传染病而发病率和死亡率增加，这一过程可能归因于随着年龄增长免疫保护作用减弱。这种现象通常被称为免疫衰老。然而，这一理论仍未得到充分界定。非人灵长类动物是促进免疫系统衰老研究的良好模型。在此，我们研究了中国恒河猴外周血中T细胞和B细胞衰老的表型特征，其中包括：（1）CD4/CD8比值降低；（2）初始T细胞减少，同时效应记忆亚群的增殖和扩增增加；（3）B细胞数量减少，且从初始B细胞向记忆表型转变；（4）T细胞中PD-1表达水平升高，B细胞中CD95表达水平升高。此外，在雄性猕猴中发现CD4(+) T细胞和初始T细胞加速下降，使其具有更严重的免疫风险特征。这些数据表明，中国恒河猴在适应性免疫表型衰老方面与人类具有显著同源性，可能是人类衰老研究的合适动物模型。
