Di Benedetto Svetlana, Derhovanessian Evelyna, Steinhagen-Thiessen Elisabeth, Goldeck David, Müller Ludmila, Pawelec Graham
Center for Medical Research, University of Tübingen, Waldhörnlestr. 22, 72072, Tübingen, Germany.
Biogerontology. 2015 Oct;16(5):631-43. doi: 10.1007/s10522-015-9563-2. Epub 2015 Mar 3.
Advancing age is characterized by functional and phenotypic alterations in the distribution of circulating T-cell subsets, some of which are exacerbated by a latent infection with the persistent herpesvirus, cytomegalovirus (CMV). The influence of age, sex and CMV-infection on T-cell subpopulations in the peripheral blood remains incompletely understood. Here, T cells from 157 participants of the Berlin Aging Study II (BASE-II) were characterized at 21-34 (n = 59) and 62-85 (n = 98) years of age. We found that the frequency of naïve CD8(+) T cells was significantly lower in the older group than in the young, and was different in men and women. Elderly men had a significantly lower proportion of naïve CD8(+) T cells than younger men, regardless of their CMV-status, but in older women, this was seen only in the CMV-seropositive group. Reciprocally, older men had a higher proportion of late-differentiated, potentially "senescent" CD57(+) T cells. Thus, T-cell senescence may be more pronounced in older men than women. Within the CD4(+) population, in the elderly of both sexes there was a significantly higher proportion of late-differentiated TEMRA cells (T effector memory cells re-expressing CD45RA), but these were present exclusively in CMV-positive subjects. Finally, for the first time, we examined the so-called TSCM cell (T-stem cell-like memory) subpopulations in both CD4(+) and CD8(+) subsets and found that neither CMV-seropositivity nor age or sex affected their frequencies. This study confirms significant cross-sectional age-associated differences of T-cell subset distribution in a representative German urban population and emphasizes the impact of both sex and CMV-infection on T-cell naïve and memory phenotypes, but unaffected frequencies of T-stem cell-like memory cells.
衰老的特征是循环T细胞亚群分布的功能和表型改变，其中一些改变会因潜伏感染持续性疱疹病毒——巨细胞病毒（CMV）而加剧。年龄、性别和CMV感染对外周血T细胞亚群的影响仍未完全明确。在此，我们对柏林衰老研究II（BASE-II）的157名参与者的T细胞进行了特征分析，这些参与者年龄在21 - 34岁（n = 59）和62 - 85岁（n = 98）。我们发现，老年组中初始CD8(+) T细胞的频率显著低于年轻组，且在男性和女性中存在差异。无论CMV感染状态如何，老年男性的初始CD8(+) T细胞比例均显著低于年轻男性，但在老年女性中，这种情况仅在CMV血清阳性组中出现。相反，老年男性中晚期分化的、可能“衰老”的CD57(+) T细胞比例更高。因此，T细胞衰老在老年男性中可能比女性更明显。在CD4(+)群体中，两性老年人中晚期分化的TEMRA细胞（重新表达CD45RA的效应记忆T细胞）比例均显著更高，但这些细胞仅存在于CMV阳性受试者中。最后，我们首次在CD4(+)和CD8(+)亚群中检测了所谓的TSCM细胞（T干细胞样记忆细胞）亚群，发现CMV血清阳性、年龄或性别均不影响它们的频率。这项研究证实了在具有代表性的德国城市人群中，T细胞亚群分布存在显著的横断面年龄相关差异，并强调了性别和CMV感染对T细胞初始和记忆表型的影响，但T干细胞样记忆细胞的频率不受影响。
