Scientists managed to revive the elderly mice immune system

After a study conducted in the U.S. in elderly people, it turned out that there is a possibility that perhaps in the future older people might be able to rejuvenate. Stanford Medicine and Rocky Mountain Laboratories of the U.S. National Institute of Health conducted research, published in Nature magazine, in which there is evidence that perhaps one day it is possible to revive the elderly’s immune system with a treatment that regulates the synthesis of a type of immune cell. Signs were seen through successful effort in elderly mice. As the human immune system faces more and more challenges from unknown bacteria and viruses, vaccination in the elderly is not as effective as younger and new pathogenic micro-organisms can be imposed horribly quickly. The cells in which researchers targeted are a subset of so-called haematopoietic stem cells or HSCs, which create all other types of blood cells and immune system, including B and T lymphocytes. As the organism grows old, HSCs begin to favor increased production of other immune cells (myeloid cells) against lymphocytes and this shift prevents the ability to react fully to new viral or bacterial threats and makes the reaction to vaccination much less powerful than that of younger people. Treatment with an antibody given during research, which targeted the destruction of aging cells, significantly improved the ability of the elderly animal immune system to face a new virus, as well as respond to vaccination, allowing them to fight a new threat months later. Treatment also reduced the inflammation that arises when an elderly immune system struggles with a new pathogen. “If we can revive the aging human immune system, as we did to mice, this could be a salvation when the next global pathogen appears,” notes Irving Weissman, professor of Pathology and Evolutionary Biology at Stanford University and one of the leading authors of the research. Weisman was the first to isolate HSC into mice and people in the late 1980s. Preclinical and clinical studies are needed to determine whether this approach can be possible in humans. However, in an accompanying article published in Nature, Yasar Arfat Kasu and Robert Cyner from the University of California in San Diego, warn that the increase in lymphoid cell production in elderly adults could possibly increase the risk of tumour growth (such as leukemia), which has been shown to be suppressed by reduced lymph production. “However, the burden from the increased risk of lymphogenic leukemia could be offset by greater protection from infections and reduced risk of other cancers, resulting from enhanced immunological surveillance,” they add. The research is published in the link: