Inflammation increases as the body ages, and one cause could be changes in a type of white blood cell.
Increased inflammation throughout the body is linked to age-related diseases from dementia to heart disease, and growing levels of an inflammatory protein called TNF are a known culprit. Dawn Bowdish at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, and her colleagues studied the effects of TNF in aged mice. They found that the protein boosted the production of immature and dysfunctional monocytes, a type of immune cell, when the mice were infected with the bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae. These immature monocytes drove further inflammation, and the infected animals were less able to rid themselves of the bacteria than were young mice. Blocking TNF in old mice restored this ability.
Antibacterial treatments may need to be tailored to the age of the infected person, the authors say.
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Immune cell goes awry with age. Nature 529, 258–259 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/529258d
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/529258d
