Volume 3 Issue 1, January 2023

Mating is known to accelerate the aging of the opposite sex in a variety of species. A transcriptomic analysis of extracted germlines from mated and unmated Caenorhabditis elegans by Shi and Murphy now identifies a Piwi-interacting RNA-to-Hedgehog signaling pathway that regulates the accelerated aging of hermaphrodites.

Aging is known to exacerbate atherosclerosis, but the mechanisms have been largely unknown. A study in Nature Aging reveals a bone-marrow-controlled axis of clonality during atherosclerosis, showing that aged bones drive an inflammatory milieu that promotes smooth muscle polyclonality and the formation of larger lesions.

Under conditions of stress, autophagic degradation of nuclear and nucleolar components was found to promot.e youthfulness and delay aging by preserving nuclear architecture and preventing nucleolar expansion, in somatic cells. We also found that nuclear-material autophagy serves as an essential quality-control mechanism that contributes to sustaining germline immortally.

Brain functions and connectivity patterns related to maladaptive emotion regulation are poorly understood. We find that, in older adults subjected to high emotional events, functional connectivity between the default mode network and the amygdala is associated with higher anxiety, rumination and negative thoughts.

We found that aging is accompanied by a reduction in cardiomyocyte nuclear size and increased stiffness, dependent on loss of A-type lamins. Mechanistically, age-dependent nuclear remodeling represses expression of cardiogenic transcription factors that are required for heart contractility. Preserving lamin or transcription factors delays cardiac decline.

Kirkland et al. identify conserved age-dependent nuclear remodeling in Drosophila cardiomyocytes, dependent on declining Lamin C. They show that Lamin C loss induces reversible heart dysfunction by repressing myogenic transcription factors.

Nuclear morphology changes with aging, but the role of these changes and the underlying mechanisms are not fully understood. The authors find that the nuclear envelope anchor protein ANC-1 in worms, and its counterpart nesprin-1 and nesprin-2 in mammals, promotes the degradation of nuclear components to limit nucleolar size and function in a soma longevity and germline immortality mechanism.

This study identifies a new germline-to-soma aging signal tuned by mating in Caenorhabditis elegans. The authors find that germline piRNAs influence longevity and somatic maintenance by transcriptionally regulating germline-to-soma Hedgehog signaling.

Kabir et al. show that aged bone marrow induces smooth muscle cell (SMC) polyclonality in atherosclerosis. Decreased TET2 levels in aged myeloid cells lead to silenced integrin β₃, resulting in increased TNFα signaling and the expansion of multiple SMC progenitors.

Impaired CD4⁺ T cell responses in older adults correlate with weaker humoral and cellular immunity as well as reduced systemic reactogenicity following mRNA coronavirus disease 2019 vaccination, thus highlighting the impact of T cell aging on vaccine effectiveness.

Older people have suboptimal responses to primary series vaccines, which can place them at risk for adverse coronavirus disease 2019 outcomes. Here the authors show that booster vaccines provide a substantial increase in antibody levels in the short term but that there is significant waning 100 d after booster shots.

Baez-Lugo et al. show that increased functional brain connectivity between default mode network and amygdala in resting state after high emotional events is associated to higher anxiety, rumination and negative thoughts in older adults.

Single-cell transcriptomic data from a neurogenic region of the mouse brain were used to build aging clocks for specific neural cell types. These clocks showed that heterochronic parabiosis and exercise lead to distinct transcriptomic rejuvenation patterns across cell types.