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A unique immune system is believed to help centenarians achieve exceptional longevity, according to a new study.
Individuals who live to be 100 years old or older are reported to have a distinct composition of immune cells, which lead to having highly functional immune systems, according to researchers, including several from Boston University School of Medicine, who participated in the study via the Independent.
The New England Centenarian Study, which was recently published in the scientific journal EBioMedicine, had researchers perform single-cell sequencing to study molecules in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs), which were taken from seven centenarian participants. The scientists then used advanced computational techniques to see how different cell types and internal activities differ as the person age, identifying cell type-specific composition and function changes that were unique to individuals 100 or older.
“We assembled and analyzed what is, to our knowledge, the largest single-cell dataset of centenarian subjects that allowed us to define unique features of this population that support the identification of molecular and lifestyle factors contributing to their longevity,” said study senior author Stefano Monti via the Independent.
“Our data support the hypothesis that centenarians have protective factors that enable to recover from disease and reach extreme old ages,” added Tanya Karagiannis, another author of the study.
Past studies have credited the decline of a proper functioning immune system as the primary cause for aging as immune cells are crucial to the body recovering from disease and, therefore, play a key role in longevity.