The aging immune system and its relationship with cancer

mario_perez

I remember I enjoyed reading this article and particular useful now with Covid-19:

Foster, A. D., Sivarapatna, A., & Gress, R. E. (2011). The aging immune system and its relationship with cancer. Aging Health, 7(5), 707–718. https://doi.org/10.2217/ahe.11.56

Highlights

- Defects in both naive and memory T-cell populations impair the immune systems response to specific antigen, including tumors.

- Diminished T-cell receptor repertoire diversity compromises response to novel cancer antigen.

- The production of inflammatory cytokines by aging memory T cells and terminally differentiated CD8+ T cells contribute to a chronic inflammatory state that may promote tumor development

- Effective cancer vaccines administered at a young age may prevent tumorigenesis during later years.

- Strategies aimed at restoring thymopoiesis in the elderly may result in a more ‘youthful’ immune system.

- Delaying T-cell replicative senescence by upregulating CD28 and telomerase activity may be useful therapeutic approaches.


I suspect upregulating CD28 and telomerase may help reducing mortality rates with respiratory viral infections. What do you think?

Roey

mario_perez wrote: »

I suspect upregulating CD28 and telomerase may help reducing mortality rates with respiratory viral infections. What do you think?

That sounds logical, but unfortunately logic doesn't necessarily help much in biological systems that we don't completely understand. Still, it sounds like a promising direction for researchers to look into.