The immune system of women changes with age “a lot…

A study of Barcelona Supercomputing Center-National Supercomputing Center (BSC) has revealed that the immune system of women changes with age “a lot more” than that of men, and has identified the cells and genes responsible for the process.
The results, published in the journal Nature Agingshow that women present more pronounced changes in the immune system with age, with an increase in inflammatory immune cells.

The finding could help explain that the autoimmune diseases They are mainly developed by women, especially at advanced ages, as well as the worsening of certain inflammatory pathologies after menopause, according to EuropaPress.

Key differences by sex

On the other hand, the changes associated with aging of the immune system in men are “globally less extensive”but an increase in certain blood cells has been observed that present alterations to the leukemiawhich could explain why some blood cancers are more common in older men.

Identifying these patterns has been possible with the analysis of blood samples close up 1,000 people of different ages that cover the entire adult life, combined with technology capable of analyzing each cell individually call single-cell RNA sequencing.

In total, the team has analyzed the activity of 20,000 genes in more than one million blood cellswhich has made it possible to identify how the immune system changes over the years, and detect “clear differences” between sexes.

Precision medicine by sex

To manage, process and analyze a volume of data of this magnitude, the scientific team has required the use of some advanced computational methods that had never been applied to data sets “so complex”.

The study establishes the bases to incorporate the biological sex as variable “clue” in precision medicine of aging.

The identification of cells and aging biomarkers sex-specific opens the door to the development of preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic strategies “best suited for women and men”.