A joint research team of the life medicine science research center of the Japanese Institute of physics and Chemistry (hereinafter referred to as' RIKEN ') and the Department of medicine of Keio University found that the blood of ultra long-lived people (over 110 years old) carries a lot of' CD4 positive killer T cells'. This finding is helpful to understand the relationship between immunity and aging and longevity, so as to contribute to the prevention of immune aging and prolonging healthy life.
This time, the research team directly collected the blood of 7 super long-lived people over the age of 110 and 5 elderly people aged 50-80, and analyzed the composition of immune cells in the blood from the cell level. The results showed that compared with people aged 50-80, the composition of T cells equivalent to the command tower of the immune system had changed significantly in the blood of super longevity people, especially CD4 positive killer T cells, which usually existed only in a small amount, had a high proportion in the blood of super longevity people. In addition, the team also found that T cells with specific types of receptors had clonal proliferation.
There are two main subtypes of T cells, namely 'CD4 positive helper T cells' that help other immune cells and' CD8 positive killer T cells' that kill cancer cells. This study found that the killer T cells carried by super long-lived people not only have ordinary CD8 positive killer T cells, but also contain a large number of 'CD4 positive killer T cells' that should rarely exist in human blood. In addition, by analyzing the blood data of people in their 20s and 70s disclosed by other research teams, it was also found that there were very few T cells with this feature, so CD4 positive killer T cells increased specifically in super long-lived people.
Relevant papers have been published in the recent online edition of proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
(original title: Super long-lived people carry special T cells)