Those with aging immune systems struggle to fight off novel viruses and respond weakly to vaccination. Researchers were able to revitalize the immune system in mice.
Planes, trains, boats, automobiles and even feet. During the past decades and centuries, global travel and human migration have made all of us more worldly -- from our broadening awareness of the world beyond our birthplaces, to our more sophisticated palates, to our immune systems that are increasingly challenged by unfamiliar bacteria and viruses.
"This is a real paradigm shift -- researchers and clinicians should think in a new way about the immune system and aging," said postdoctoral scholar Jason Ross, MD, PhD."The idea that it's possible to tune the entire immune system of millions of cells simply by affecting the function of such a rare population is surprising and exciting."
Some of these descendants make up what's known as the adaptive immune system: highly specialized B and T lymphocytes that each recognize just one particular three-dimensional structure -- perhaps a pointy bit here or a telltale knobby clump there -- that betrays an invading virus or bacteria.
"These new, naïve lymphocytes provide better immune coverage for novel infections like those humans increasingly encounter as our world becomes more global," Weissman said."Without this renewal, these new infectious agents would not be recognized by the existing pool of memory lymphocytes." "Every feature of an aging immune system -- functional markers on the cells, the prevalence of inflammatory proteins, the response to vaccination and the ability to resist a lethal infection -- was impacted by this single course of treatment targeting just one cell type," Ross said.
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