Mouse blood proteins reveal shared aging markers in humans
Researchers want to understand how blood changes as we age. But that is difficult: a human lifetime takes decades, while a mouse lives just two years. A new measurement method now combines both advantages.
Scientists developed a method to measure nearly 4,000 protein groups in just 20 microlitres of mouse blood, less than a single drop. They combined a technique using nanoparticles to concentrate low-abundance proteins with an advanced mass spectrometry measurement approach. The study was published in Nature Aging. Thirty mice across three age groups (12, 24 and 30 months) were assessed in a cross-sectional analysis.
Proteins found that also change in humans
Several aging-associated proteins identified in mice also appeared in a large human aging study, the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. One protein, COL6A3, was also linked to frailty in older people. This suggests some blood-based aging processes may be shared between mice and humans, though the combined evidence for this remains limited.
Method supplemented with cytokine measurement
Mass spectrometry misses small immune signalling molecules (cytokines), because they occur at concentrations too low to detect reliably. The researchers therefore added a complementary assay that measured 43 cytokines in just 1 microlitre of additional blood. This provides a more complete picture of the aging process in blood. The researchers note that the proteomics data come from a cross-sectional analysis: mice were measured at a single time point, not followed repeatedly over their lifespans.
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