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Research Paper|Volume 11, Issue 22|pp 10723—10741

T cells and immune functions of plasma extracellular vesicles are differentially modulated from adults to centenarians

Ainhoa Alberro1, Iñaki Osorio-Querejeta1,2, Lucía Sepúlveda1, Gorka Fernández-Eulate3,4, Maider Mateo-Abad5, Maider Muñoz-Culla1,2, Susana Carregal-Romero6,7, Ander Matheu8,9,10, Itziar Vergara5,11, Adolfo López de Munain3,4,12, Matías Sáenz-Cuesta1,2, David Otaegui1,2
  • 1Biodonostia Health Research Institute, Multiple Sclerosis Group, San Sebastian, Spain
  • 2Spanish Network of Multiple Sclerosis, Barcelona, Spain
  • 3Osakidetza Basque Health Service, Donostia University Hospital, San Sebastian, Spain
  • 4Biodonostia Health Research Institute, Neuromuscular Diseases Group, San Sebastian, Spain
  • 5Biodonostia Health Research Institute, Primary Care Unit, San Sebastian, Spain
  • 6CIBER de Enfermedades Respiratorias (CIBERES), Madrid, Spain
  • 7CIC biomaGUNE, Molecular and Functional Biomarkers Group, San Sebastian, Spain
  • 8Biodonostia Health Research Institute, Cellular Oncology Group, San Sebastian, Spain
  • 9CIBER de Fragilidad y Envejecimiento Saludable (CIBERfes), Madrid, Spain
  • 10IKERBASQUE, Basque Foundation for Science, Bilbao, Spain
  • 11Health Services Research on Chronic Patients Network (REDISSEC), Madrid, Spain
  • 12CIBERNED, Madrid, Spain
Received: August 28, 2019Accepted: November 18, 2019Published: November 27, 2019
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.102517

Copyright © 2019 Alberro et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Aging is a universal and complex process that affects all tissues and cells types, including immune cells, in a process known as immunosenescence. However, many aspects of immunosenescence are not completely understood, as the characteristics of the immune cells of nonagenarians and centenarians or the features and implications of extracellular vesicles (EVs). In this study, we analyzed blood samples from 51 individuals aged 20-49 and 70-104 years. We found that senescent CD8 cells accumulate with age, while there is a partial reduction of senescent CD4 cells in nonagenarians and centenarians. Moreover, plasma EVs carry T cell specific markers, but no accumulation of “senescent-like EVs” was found within any of analyzed age groups. Our functional studies of cocultures of peripheral blood mononuclear cells and EVs showed that EVs enhance T cell viability and, under phytohemagglutinin stimulation, they influence cytokine secretion and cell activation in an age-dependent manner. These results underline the importance of EVs on the immune system functioning, and open new perspectives to further study their implication in human aging.