Research Paper|Volume 14, Issue 17|pp 7065—7092

The general law of plasma proteome alterations occurring in the lifetime of Chinese individuals reveals the importance of immunity

Xiaolin Ni^1,^2,³, Juan Jiao⁴, Ze Yang¹, Zhaoping Wang¹, Nan Nan⁵, Danni Gao¹, Liang Sun¹, Xiaoquan Zhu¹, Qi Zhou¹, Nan Zhang¹, Zhu Wu¹, Shenqi Zhang⁶, Huiping Yuan¹

¹The Key Laboratory of Geriatrics, Beijing Institute of Geriatrics, Institute of Geriatric Medicine, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing Hospital, National Center of Gerontology of National Health Commission, Beijing 100730, China
²University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
³State Key Laboratory of Stem Cell and Reproductive Biology, Institute of Zoology, Institute for Stem Cell and Regeneration, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
⁴Department of Clinical Laboratory, The Seventh Medical Center, Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing 100700, China
⁵Department of Cardiology, Beijing Anzhen Hospital, Capital Medical University, Chaoyang, Beijing 100029, China
⁶Department of Joint and Sports Medicine, Zaozhuang Municipal Hospital Affiliated to Jining Medical University, Shandong 277100, China

Received: May 26, 2022Accepted: August 25, 2022Published: September 7, 2022

https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.204278

Copyright: © 2022 Ni 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

Background: Aging is characterized by a continuous loss of protein homeostasis. A closer examination of peripheral blood, which houses proteins from nearly all tissues and cells, helped identify several biomarkers and other aspects of aging biology. To further explore the general law of aging and identify key time nodes and associated aging biology, we collected 97 plasma samples from 253 healthy individuals aged 0-100 years without adverse outcomes to conduct nano-Ultra High Performance Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry/Mass Spectrometry (nano-UHPLC-MS/MS) and weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA).

Results: Through biological processes and key biological pathways identified in discrete age group modules, our analyses highlighted a strong correlation between alterations in the immune system and aging process. We also identified hub genes associated with distinct age groups that revealed alterations not only in protein expression but also in signaling cascade. Among them, hub genes from age groups of 0-20 years old and 71-100 years old are mostly involved in infectious diseases and the immune system. In addition, CDC5L and HMGB2 were the key transcription factors (TFs) regulating genes expression in people aged between 51-60 and 71-100 years of age. They were shown to not only be independent but also mutually regulate certain hub gene expressions.

Conclusions: This study reveals that the plasma proteome undergoes a complex alteration over the lifetime of a human. In this process, the immune system is crucial throughout the lifespan of a human being. However, the underlying mechanism(s) regulating differential protein expressions at distinct ages remains to be elucidated.