From inflamm-aging to immune-paralysis: a slippery slope during aging for immune-adaptation (original) (raw)
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The innate immune system and aging: What is the contribution to immunosenescence?
Open Longevity Science, 2012
The immune system plays an important role in the defence against various threats to health, such as pathogens, cancer cells or modified-self proteins. With aging there is a decrease in the immune response, called immunosenescence, concomitantly with the increase in some age-related diseases such as infections, autoimmune disorders, chronic inflammatory diseases and cancer. The immune response is traditionally divided between innate and adaptive immune responses. Accumulating evidence suggests that immunosenescence is not only restricted to the adaptive but also affects the innate immune system. Assessment of innate immune system functions revealed that it is also susceptible to age-related dysregulation. Furthermore, it is becoming clear that the sustained function of innate cells is indispensable for the adequate functioning of the adaptive immune response. This review will describe the changes in the innate immune response with aging and the recent discoveries, which may shed new light on its contribution to immunosenescence.
Immunosenescence and Inflamm-Aging As Two Sides of the Same Coin: Friends or Foes?
Frontiers in immunology, 2017
The immune system is the most important protective physiological system of the organism. It has many connections with other systems and is, in fact, often considered as part of the larger neuro-endocrine-immune axis. Most experimental data on immune changes with aging show a decline in many immune parameters when compared to young healthy subjects. The bulk of these changes is termed immunosenescence. Immunosenescence has been considered for some time as detrimental because it often leads to subclinical accumulation of pro-inflammatory factors and inflamm-aging. Together, immunosenescence and inflamm-aging are suggested to stand at the origin of most of the diseases of the elderly, such as infections, cancer, autoimmune disorders, and chronic inflammatory diseases. However, an increasing number of immune-gerontologists have challenged this negative interpretation of immunosenescence with respect to its significance in aging-related alterations of the immune system. If one considers ...
Immune System, Cell Senescence, Aging and Longevity - Inflamm-Aging Reappraised
Current Pharmaceutical Design, 2013
Inflamm-aging, that is the age-associated inflammatory status, is considered one of the most striking consequences of immunosenescence, as it is believed to be linked to the majority of age-associated diseases sharing an inflammatory basis. Nevertheless, evidence is emerging that inflamm-aging is at least in part independent from immunological stimuli. Moreover, centenarians who avoided or delayed major inflammatory diseases display markers of inflammation. In this paper we proposed a reappraisal of the concept of inflamm-aging, suggesting that its pathological effects can be independent from the total amount of pro-inflammatory mediators, but they would be rather associated with the anatomical district and type of cells where they are produced and where they primarily act.
Impact of aging on innate immunity
1998
Immune responses in higher organisms are triggered by the recognition of a limited diversity of microbiological products by cells of the innate or ''natural'' immune system. As a result, in addition to the direct protective effect of natural immunity, antigen-presenting cells, particularly dendritic cells, are activated to process and present an enormous number of peptide antigens to the T lymphocytes of the adaptive immune system. These, together with the B lymphocytes, then mediate specific immune responses and maintain acquired immunological memory. The aging immune system is less well able to cope with infectious disease than the youthful immune system; this review will briefly consider what is known of the age-associated alterations in innate immunity, and how these may also impact on adaptive immunity. J. Leukoc. Biol. 64: 703-712; 1998.
Aging of the immune system: Focus on inflammation and vaccination
European journal of immunology, 2016
Major advances in preventing, delaying, or curing individual pathologies are responsible for an increasingly long life span in the developed parts of our planet, and indeed reaching eight to nine decades of life is nowadays extremely frequent. However, medical and sanitary advances have not prevented or delayed the underlying cause of the disparate pathologies occurring in the elderly: aging itself. The identification of the basis of the aging processes that drives the multiple pathologies and loss of function typical of older individuals is a major challenge in current aging research. Among the possible causes, an impairment of the immune system plays a major role, and indeed numerous studies have described immunological changes which occur with age. Far from the intention of being exhaustive, this review will focus on recent advances and views on the role that modifications of cell signalling and remodelling of the immune response play during human aging and longevity, paying part...
Innate immunity and inflammation in ageing: a key for understanding age-related diseases
Immunity & Ageing, 2005
The process of maintaining life for the individual is a constant struggle to preserve his/her integrity. This can come at a price when immunity is involved, namely systemic inflammation. Inflammation is not per se a negative phenomenon: it is the response of the immune system to the invasion of viruses or bacteria and other pathogens. During evolution the human organism
Causes, consequences, and reversal of immune system aging
Journal of Clinical Investigation, 2013
The effects of aging on the immune system are manifest at multiple levels that include reduced production of B and T cells in bone marrow and thymus and diminished function of mature lymphocytes in secondary lymphoid tissues. As a result, elderly individuals do not respond to immune challenge as robustly as the young. An important goal of aging research is to define the cellular changes that occur in the immune system and the molecular events that underlie them. Considerable progress has been made in this regard, and this information has provided the rationale for clinical trials to rejuvenate the aging immune system.
Experimental Gerontology, 2008
Advanced age is associated with defects in all of the cells of the innate immune system, including numbers, function, their, and early stages of activation. In this review, the current state of the field on the impact of age on the innate immune system is presented. The analysis of the literature suggests that a dysfunctional innate immune system is a contributing factor to aberrant outcomes after injury or infection and to the development of many of the diseases observed in the elderly. Gaining an understanding of the nature of the defects in innate immune cells may allow the development of therapeutic strategies aimed at restoring innate immune function in aged individuals.
The immune system and aging: a review
Gynecological Endocrinology, 2014
The concept of immunosenescence reflects age-related changes in immune responses, both cellular and serological, affecting the process of generating specific responses to foreign and self-antigens. The decline of the immune system with age is reflected in the increased susceptibility to infectious diseases, poorer response to vaccination, increased prevalence of cancer, autoimmune and other chronic diseases. Both innate and adaptive immune responses are affected by the aging process; however, the adaptive response seems to be more affected by the age-related changes in the immune system. Additionally, aged individuals tend to present a chronic low-grade inflammatory state that has been implicated in the pathogenesis of many age-related diseases (atherosclerosis, Alzheimer's disease, osteoporosis and diabetes). However, some individuals arrive to advanced ages without any major health problems, referred to as healthy aging. The immune system dysfunction seems to be somehow mitigated in this population, probably due to genetic and environmental factors yet to be described. In this review, an attempt is made to summarize the current knowledge on how the immune system is affected by the aging process.