The pursuit of immortality has always been a long-standing aspiration of humanity. However, with increasing age comes the unexpected onset of aging. Although time is impartial, the process of ageing lacks uniformity. The human immune system changes with age and immune ageing significantly weakens an individual's resistance against various pathogens and cancer cells while simultaneously elevating the risk of immune disorders and chronic inflammation. Consequently, individuals who share the same chronological age may exhibit varying disease-fighting abilities. The substantial inter-individual variability underscores the imperative of precise monitoring to investigate the progressive alterations experienced by the immune system during ageing. Actually, numerous studies have focused on the changes in different lymphocyte subsets in diseases and immuno-senescence. However, quantitatively assessing host immunity remains a challenge, a comprehensive analysis of the alterations in both lymphocyte number and phenotype alterations induced by ageing remains lacking in China. Previous studies have primarily focused on the phenotypic changes in immune subsets during ageing, often utilizing a limited control cohort or lacking appropriate age-matched controls. Therefore, the standard immune markers and immune age evaluation model tailored to the Chinese population were currently needed. In a recent study, Jia et al. conducted a comprehensive investigation on a large-scale healthy Chinese cohort and successfully developed the first and largest immune age prediction model specifically tailored for the Chinese population. Here, we discussed this immune age evaluation model for the Chinese population and gave some suggestions for further improvement.
Keywords: Ageing; Chinese Population; Immune age; NK cells; T cells; γδ T cells.
© International Human Phenome Institutes (Shanghai) 2024.