Single-cell immune aging clocks reveal inter-individual heterogeneity during infection and vaccination by Wenchao Li  1,2, Zhenhua Zhang1,2, Saumya Kumar  1,2, Javier Botey-Bataller  1,2,3, instant download

Single-cell immune aging clocks reveal inter-individual heterogeneity during infection and vaccination by Wenchao Li  1,2, Zhenhua Zhang1,2, Saumya Kumar  1,2, Javier Botey-Bataller  1,2,3, instant download

Aging afects human immune system functionality, increasing susceptibility to immune-mediated diseases. While gene expression programs accurately refect immune function, their relationship with biological immune aging and health status remains unclear. Here we developed robust, cell-type-specifc aging clocks (sc-ImmuAging) for the myeloid and lymphoid immune cell populations in circulation within peripheral blood mononuclear cells, using single-cell RNA-sequencing data from 1,081 healthy individuals aged from 18 to 97 years. Application of sc-ImmuAging to transcriptome data of patients with COVID-19 revealed notable age acceleration in monocytes, which decreased during recovery. Furthermore, inter-individual variations in immune aging induced by vaccination were identifed, with individuals exhibiting elevated baseline interferon response genes showing age rejuvenation in CD8+ T cells after BCG vaccination. sc-ImmuAging provides a powerful tool for decoding immune aging dynamics, ofering insights into age-related immune alterations and potential interventions to promote healthy aging.