Human PBMC scRNA-seq-based aging clocks reveal ribosome to inflammation balance as a single-cell aging hallmark and super longevity

Sci Adv. 2023 Jun 28;9(26):eabq7599. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abq7599. Epub 2023 Jun 28.

Abstract

Quantifying aging rate is important for evaluating age-associated decline and mortality. A blood single-cell RNA sequencing dataset for seven supercentenarians (SCs) was recently generated. Here, we generate a reference 28-sample aging cohort to compute a single-cell level aging clock and to determine the biological age of SCs. Our clock model placed the SCs at a blood biological age to between 80.43 and 102.67 years. Compared to the model-expected aging trajectory, SCs display increased naive CD8+ T cells, decreased cytotoxic CD8+ T cells, memory CD4+ T cells, and megakaryocytes. As the most prominent molecular hallmarks at the single-cell level, SCs contain more cells and cell types with high ribosome level, which is associated with and, according to Bayesian network inference, contributes to a low inflammation state and slow aging of SCs. Inhibiting ribosomal activity or translation in monocytes validates such translation against inflammation balance revealed by our single-cell aging clock.

MeSH terms

  • Aged, 80 and over
  • Aging / genetics
  • Bayes Theorem
  • CD8-Positive T-Lymphocytes*
  • Cellular Senescence / genetics
  • Humans
  • Inflammation / genetics
  • Leukocytes, Mononuclear
  • Longevity*
  • Ribosomes / genetics
  • Single-Cell Gene Expression Analysis