Gong Mingxing, Li Xueying, Zheng Anqi, Xu Hongxu, Xie Shi, Yan Rong, Wu Hongkai, Wang Zhanhui
State Key Laboratory of Organ Failure Research, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Viral Hepatitis Research, Department of Infectious Diseases and Hepatology Unit, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
Department of Clinical Laboratory, The First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China.
Immunol Lett. 2021 Dec;240:71-76. doi: 10.1016/j.imlet.2021.10.002. Epub 2021 Oct 16.
A diverse immune repertoire is capable of recognizing the enormous universe of foreign antigens encountered over life. Aging has a profound impact on the immune repertoires. However, whether continuous age-related changes in the immune repertoires differ between sexes is unclear. In this study, the characteristics of immune repertoires stratified by sex during aging are deciphered by analyzing T-cell receptor β-chain (TRB) and immunoglobulin heavy chain (IGH) sequences in 361 healthy adults. A similar change was observed between males and females across their lifespan, whereas age-subgroup analysis revealed sex-specific signatures in TRB and IGH repertoires. In regard to TRB, in males, repertoire richness and evenness increases slightly before the age of 32 years and 45 years respectively, and decreases sharply thereafter. Intriguingly, in females, they decrease significantly until around the age 57 years old, and subsequently undergo a stable stage up to the age of 83 years. Although IGH repertoire evenness increases significantly with age in both sexes, richness decreases significantly with age in males but remains stable in females. Moreover, average length of IGH CDR3 increases with age. In conclusion, these findings provide fundamental insights into the mechanisms underlying sex differences in adaptive immunity.
多样化的免疫库能够识别生命中遇到的大量外来抗原。衰老对免疫库有深远影响。然而，免疫库中与年龄相关的持续变化在性别之间是否存在差异尚不清楚。在本研究中，通过分析361名健康成年人的T细胞受体β链（TRB）和免疫球蛋白重链（IGH）序列，解读了衰老过程中按性别分层的免疫库特征。在男性和女性的整个生命周期中观察到了类似的变化，而年龄亚组分析揭示了TRB和IGH库中的性别特异性特征。关于TRB，在男性中，库的丰富度和均匀度分别在32岁和45岁之前略有增加，此后急剧下降。有趣的是，在女性中，它们在57岁左右之前显著下降，随后在83岁之前经历一个稳定阶段。虽然IGH库的均匀度在两性中均随年龄显著增加，但丰富度在男性中随年龄显著下降，而在女性中保持稳定。此外，IGH CDR3的平均长度随年龄增加。总之，这些发现为适应性免疫中性别差异的潜在机制提供了基本见解。
