Age-related changes in the transcriptome of antibody-secreting cells.

We analyzed age-related defects in B cell populations from young and aged mice. Microarray analysis of bone marrow resident antibody secreting cells (ASCs) showed significant changes upon aging, affecting multiple genes, pathways and functions including those that play a role in immune regulation, humoral immune responses, chromatin structure and assembly, cell metabolism and the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress response. Further analysis showed upon aging defects in energy production through glucose catabolism with reduced oxidative phosphorylation. In addition aged B cells had increased levels of reactive oxygen-species (ROS), which was linked to enhanced expression of the co-inhibitor programmed cell death (PD)-1.