Aging increases cell-to-cell transcriptional variability upon immune stimulation

Celia Pilar Martinez‐Jimenez(University of Cambridge), Nils Eling(European Bioinformatics Institute), Hung‐Chang Chen(University of Cambridge), Catalina A. Vallejos(European Bioinformatics Institute), Aleksandra A. Kolodziejczyk(European Bioinformatics Institute), Frances Connor(University of Cambridge), Lovorka Stojic(University of Cambridge), Tim F. Rayner(University of Cambridge), Michael J. T. Stubbington(European Bioinformatics Institute), Sarah A. Teichmann(European Bioinformatics Institute), Maike de la Roche(University of Cambridge), John C. Marioni(European Bioinformatics Institute), Duncan T. Odom(University of Cambridge)
Science
March 30, 2017
Cited by 369Open Access
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Abstract

T cells from young and old mice from two divergent species. In young animals, immunological activation drives a conserved transcriptomic switch, resulting in tightly controlled gene expression characterized by a strong up-regulation of a core activation program, coupled with a decrease in cell-to-cell variability. Aging perturbed the activation of this core program and increased expression heterogeneity across populations of cells in both species. These discoveries suggest that increased cell-to-cell transcriptional variability will be a hallmark feature of aging across most, if not all, mammalian tissues.


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