Aging increases cell-to-cell transcriptional variability upon immune stimulation.

ABSTRACT: Aging is characterized by progressive loss of physiological and cellular functions, but the molecular basis of this decline remains unclear. We explored how aging affects transcriptional dynamics using single-cell RNA sequencing of unstimulated and stimulated naïve and effector memory CD4⁺ T cells from young and old mice from two divergent species. In young animals, immunological activation drives a conserved transcriptomic switch, resulting in tightly controlled gene expression characterized by a strong up-regulation of a core activation program, coupled with a decrease in cell-to-cell variability. Aging perturbed the activation of this core program and increased expression heterogeneity across populations of cells in both species. These discoveries suggest that increased cell-

SUBMITTER: Martinez-Jimenez CP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5405862 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature