Characterization of blood markers and their implication in human aging.

Abstract

Aging is a universal, complex and heterogeneous process. In the last decades, an overall improvement in the quality of life and consequent increase in life expectancy has been achieved. In contrast, the disability-free life expectancy is not rising. Therefore, research on the biology of aging is essential to prolong healthy aging. In this work, we performed different approaches, focusing on the biomarkers of frailty, extracellular vesicles, inflammaging and immunosenescence. Regarding the biomarkers of frailty syndrome, we propose the elevated expression of EGR1 as a potential candidate. In the case of EVs from plasma, we found that they enhance cell differentiation in osteogenesis and myogenesis, and that they boost T cell activation under immunogenic stimulation, while these effects of EVs are reduced with aging. We also reported the presence of inflammaging and immunosenescence with increasing age, but nonagenarians and centenarians showed reduced senescence in CD4 T cells. Finally, our experiments in multiple sclerosis patients indicate that despite being in remission and under immunomodulatory treatment they have chronic inflammation, and further investigations are needed to evaluate the possible incidence of premature aging in this and other autoimmune diseases.