Abstract
BackgroundThe immune system undergoes a myriad of changes with age. While it is known that antibody-secreting plasma and long-lived memory B cells change with age, it remains unclear how the binding profile of the circulating antibody repertoire is impacted.ResultsTo understand humoral immunity changes with respect to age, we characterized serum antibody binding to high density peptide microarrays in a diverse cohort of 1675 donors. We discovered thousands of peptides that bind antibodies in age-dependent fashion, many of which contain di-serine motifs. Peptide binding profiles were aggregated into an “immune age” by a machine learning regression model that was highly correlated with chronological age. Applying this regression model to previously-unobserved donors, we found that a donor’s predicted immune age is longitudinally consistent over years, suggesting it could be a robust long-term biomarker of humoral immune ageing. Finally, we assayed serum from donors with autoimmune disease and found a significant association between “accelerated immune ageing” and autoimmune disease activity.ConclusionsThe circulating antibody repertoire has increased binding to thousands of di-serine peptide containing peptides in older donors, which can be represented as an immune age. Increased immune age is associated with autoimmune disease, acute inflammatory disease severity, and may be a broadly relevant biomarker of immune function in health, disease, and therapeutic intervention.
Highlights
The immune system undergoes a myriad of changes with age
These results suggest that the immune age may be a broadly relevant biomarker of immune function in health and disease
To minimize bias associated with self-selecting blood donors, we prespecified a balanced donor enrollment by age, sex, and geography (Fig. 1b)
Summary
The immune system undergoes a myriad of changes with age. While it is known that antibodysecreting plasma and long-lived memory B cells change with age, it remains unclear how the binding profile of the circulating antibody repertoire is impacted. Hematopoiesis broadly declines [4, 18,19,20,21], professional antigen presenting cells reduce expression of peptide-MHC-II complex [22, 23], and antibody effector cells show decreased functional clearance of IgG-bound pathogens [12, 24]. These age-dependent declines in humoral immunity can be manifested in less effective antibody binding [25, 26], which can result in differential infection protection as demonstrated by serum transfer experiments of heterochronic mice [27]. IgM autoantibody secretion is selectively induced in older mice in response to vaccination, whereas unvaccinated aged mice in semi-sterile lab environment presented with fewer self-reactive secreting splenic B cells [29]
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