Ссылка
click to show
click to show
Supercentenarians' Immune Cells
Researchers compared T-cells in the blood of 28 elderly individuals and found that people over 110 years old had a higher proportion of CD4 CTL, a type of T-cell that can attack infected and dangerously altered cells. The same team had previously found CD4 CTL in 7 supercentenarians in 2019. In their latest study, published on August 19, they investigated how this population changes with age by comparing 8 people aged 70-99, 10 centenarians, and 10 people over 110 years old.
The median proportion of CD4 CTL among all T-cells in these groups was 4.0%, 9.6%, and 17.6%, respectively. Typically, CD4 cells coordinate the immune response, but some of them can activate a cytotoxic program, producing proteins that T-cells use to destroy infected or altered cells. To understand the pathway of this transition, the team analyzed the active genes, surface proteins, and T-cell receptor sequence in each cell. Cells with the same receptor form a clone, meaning they originate from a single initial cell.
The authors discovered an intermediate stage between regular CD4 cells and CD4 CTL: the cell first loses the surface marker CD27 while retaining CD28, and then fully activates the attack program. The arrangement of these cells between the two groups, flow cytometry, and RNA analysis indicate this sequence of states. The largest clone in each participant had its own receptor sequence and occupied approximately one-third of all their CD4 CTL. The authors compared a short fragment of these receptors to a large database of sequences and found that 32 out of 36 matches for expanded clones were found in cancer patient samples, as reported in Nature Aging, July 2026.
🔗 Read original →
8 ·