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Inflammaging

Old T cells pollute with mito-litter

The mysteries behind immune aging and its related inflammation are being unmasked. Jin et al. reveal that the defective turnover of damaged mitochondria in CD4+ T cells from older individuals results in the exacerbated secretion of mitochondrial DNA, which fuels inflammaging and impairs immune responses.

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Fig. 1: Lysosomal dysfunction in T cell aging fosters mtDNA secretion and inflammaging.

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Acknowledgements

The authors were supported by the Fondo de Investigación Sanitaria del Instituto de Salud Carlos III (PI19/855), the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the European Commission through H2020-EU.1.1, European Research Council grant ERC-2021-CoG-101044248-Let T Be, and the Y2020/BIO-6350 NutriSION-CM synergy grant from Comunidad de Madrid. M.M.G.d.l.H. is supported by a FPU grant (FPU19/02576) from Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (Spain).

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Correspondence to María Mittelbrunn.

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Gómez de las Heras, M.M., Mittelbrunn, M. Old T cells pollute with mito-litter. Nat Aging 3, 475–476 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43587-023-00412-2

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