US scientists have discovered T cells in the body can be ‘reprogrammed’ to slow down and even reverse ageing.
T cells – a type of white blood cell known as lymphocytes – are important for the immune system, helping find and destroy potentially harmful pathogens such as viruses and bacteria.
They are made within the body’s bone marrow and move to the Thymus gland to develop; upon maturity, they travel to tissues and organs within the lymphatic system and circulate within the bloodstream.
In their study published in Nature Aging, a team at New York’s Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory reported T cells can be used to fight off another type of cell that increases as a person ages and causes inflammation, ‘rendering the ageing immune system less effective over time’.
In recent years, researchers have examined ways to use T cells to fight diseases such as cancer, leading to the development of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy – a type of immunotherapy where T cells are taken from a person, altered in the lab and infused back into the same person to fight a particular type of cancer; scientists have also been researching use of CAR T-cell therapy to treat non- cancer diseases such as auto-immune diseases and viral infections like HIV and hepatitis C.
Lead study author Professor Corina Amor Vegas told medicalnewstoday.com her team focused on the potential for T cells to fight ageing because ‘the immune system is really powerful at eliminating damaged cells in younger individuals. So we wondered whether in ageing, we could redirect and repower the T cells to eliminate the damaged ‘senescent’ cells that accumulate.’
She noted: ‘Senescent cells in our body have accumulated a lot of damage and, as a result, have stopped doing their normal jobs and instead become very inflammatory. The accumulation of these cells in tissues is really deleterious because it creates a severe pro- inflammatory micro-environment that prevents other cells in the tissue from working properly too.’
Using a mouse model, her team found mice treated with CAR T-cell therapy to remove senescent cells became healthier with lower body weight, improved metabolism and glucose tolerance, and increased physical activity.
Professor Amor Vegas said: ‘We were very excited to see the CAR T cells were able to eliminate the senescent cells and drive these effects. We were also really excited about the long-term durability of these effects.’
She added: ‘Interestingly, we saw not only therapeutic effects when we treated aged animals but we also saw preventive effects. Thus when we treated young animals – once, only in their youth – and we let them age, they aged better.’
