Project description:Background: Skin aging is associated with intrinsic processes that compromise structure of the extracellular matrix while promoting loss of functional and regenerative capacity. These processes are accompanied by a large-scale shift in gene expression, but underlying mechanisms are not understood and conservation of these mechanisms between humans and mice is uncertain. Results: We used genome-wide expression profiling to investigate the aging skin transcriptome. In humans, age-related shifts in gene expression were sex-specific. In females, aging increased expression of transcripts associated with T-cells, B-cells and dendritic cells, and decreased expression of genes in regions with elevated Zeb1, AP-2 and YY1 motif density. In males, however, these effects were contrasting or absent. When age-associated gene expression patterns in human skin were compared to those in tail skin from CB6F1 mice, overall human-mouse correspondence was weak. Moreover, inflammatory gene expression patterns were not induced with aging of mouse tail skin, and well-known aging biomarkers were in fact decreased (e.g., Clec7a, Lyz1 and Lyz2). These unexpected patterns and weak human-mouse correspondence may be due to decreased abundance of antigen presenting cells in mouse tail skin with age. Conclusions: Aging is generally associated with a pro-inflammatory state, but we have identified an exception to this pattern with aging of CB6F1 mouse tail skin. Aging therefore does not uniformly heighten inflammatory status across all mouse tissues. Furthermore, we identified both intercellular and intracellular mechanisms of transcriptome aging, including those that are sex- and species-specific. We used Affymetrix microarrays to evaluate genome-wide expression in tail skin from young (5 month) and old (30 month) CB6F1 mice (males and females). Genome-wide expression was evaluated in tail skin from young (5 months) and old (30 months) CB6F1 mice of both sexes. Samples were collected simultaneously but RNA samples were processed in two separate batches.

Project description:Sarcopenia is the decreased muscle mass and weakness associated with aging and a major cause of morbidity and mortality in the elderly. To what extent non-locomotive muscles are susceptible to this condition is unclear. For example, age affects laryngeal function (ventilation, airway protective reflexes, swallowing and phonation). Age-related laryngeal dysfunction may be due to effects on its intrinsic muscles that have a unique phenotype: very small, mostly fast oxidative muscle fibers. For this study, we examined how age alters the functional characteristics and gene expression profile of posterior cricoarytenoid (PCA), an intrinsic laryngeal muscle. PCA muscles from Fischer 344-Brown Norway F1 hybrid rats (6 and 30 months of age) were used for cDNA microarrays, light and electron (EM) microscopy, and in vitro contractile function. Histological analyses demonstrated a ~40% increase in mean PCA fiber size and in the number of fibers with low myosin ATPase activity. There was also evidence of ragged-red fibers, a hallmark of mitochondrial dysfunction. In turn, mitochondrial volume density, determined by EM, was significantly higher in PCA muscles at 30 months (43% vs. 21% at 6 months). In vitro function showed a decrease in velocity of unloaded shortening at 30 months. Finally, cDNA microarrays demonstrated a transcriptome shift in PCA muscle with age. Gene classes with the largest changes were: signal transduction, transcription factors, and metabolic enzymes. These data demonstrate that PCA muscles are significantly altered by age. Moreover, the observed changes in muscle fiber size, mitochondrial content and gene expression profile suggest that the PCA response to age diverges from that seen in more typical skeletal muscles. Experiment Overall Design: Total RNA was obtained with TRIzol (Invitrogen Carlsbad, CA) following the manufacturers recommended protocol. Tissues from 4 animals were combined into each RNA sample to decrease inter-subject variability. Biotinylated cRNA samples were hybridized to Affymetrix Rat Genome U34 gene chips (n=9 chips) described previously [McMullen et al. 2004]. Microarrays were washed and stained with a streptavidin-bound marker and scanned. Data were analyzed with Affymetrix Microarray Suite 5.0 software. Only genes with consistent absent/present calls in all three independent replicates per group were considered for further analysis. Comparisons used the 6-mo transcriptome as the baseline and the one-sided Wilcoxonâs signed rank test to estimate âincrease/no change/ decreaseâ difference calls for each pair-wise comparison. Only difference calls consistent in all pair-wise comparisons and with average changes > 1.70 were considered significant, resulting in a conservative list of genes with changed expression levels. Functional classification of genes was based on an extensive literature review.

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Sequencing of Mus musculus brain of 30 months old animals

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