Organism-wide cellular dynamics and epigenomic remodeling in mammalian aging - PubMed

4 hours ago

Aging leads to functional decline and changes in cellular composition across tissues.
A single-cell chromatin accessibility atlas was created with ~7 million cells from 21 tissue types across three age groups in both sexes.
The study identified 536 main cell types and 1,828 finer-grained subtypes based on chromatin accessibility.
Immune lineages showed widespread remodeling, with increases in plasma cells and macrophages, and depletion of T and B cell progenitors.
Non-immune cell populations, such as kidney podocytes and lung aerocytes, decreased with age.
Many cell subtypes changed synchronously across multiple organs, suggesting systemic influences like inflammation or hormonal cues.
Aging was marked by thousands of differentially accessible chromatin regions, linked to inflammation or development-related genes.
Around 40% of aging-associated cell types showed sex-dependent differences in chromatin accessibility.
The findings provide a framework for understanding aging's impact on chromatin and cellular composition, aiding in therapeutic strategy exploration.

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