Could cytotoxic cells be the key to longevity?
Scientists from the RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Science (IMS) and Keio University School of Medicine in Japan have used single-cell RNA analysis to find that supercentenarians–meaning people over the age of 110–have an excess of a type of immune cell called cytotoxic CD4 T-cells.
The supercentenarians form a very special group. They are rare. In Japan, for example, there were 61,000 over 100-year-olds in 2015. But only 146 people aged over 110. Studies have shown that these people were relatively resistant to diseases such as cancer and infections throughout their lifetime. Researchers began to suspect that these individuals may have an especially strong immune system.
They examined the circulating immune cells of a group that included supercentenarians as well as younger controls to answer this question. The researchers collected a total 41,208 cells (average 5,887 cells per subject) for seven supercentenarians and 19,994 control cells (average 3,999 cells per subject) for five controls in their fifties through eighties. The researchers found that although the number B-cells in supercentenarians was less, the T-cells were about the same. In particular, they noticed an increase in one subset T-cells in supercentenarians. The authors discovered that supercentenarians have a high percentage of cytotoxic cells. This means that these cells can kill other cells.
Source:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-11-cytotoxic-t-cells-key-longevity.html
