129 Pervasive immune dysfunction characterizes photoaged skin

Abstract

Long-term sun exposure markedly accelerates the skin changes of chronological aging, leading to deterioration of skin function and appearance in a process termed Photoaging. The molecular mechanisms underlying photoaging remain incompletely defined, due largely to the limitations of ex vivo studies. To interrogate this phenomenon in vivo, we performed single-cell RNA-seq of sun-protected and sun-exposed skin from four ∼20-year-old (yo) and four ∼90yo donors. Clustering and annotation of the resulting cells revealed pervasive immune dysfunction in photoaged skin.