Aging improves pancreatic -cell function in mice. This is a surprising finding since aging is typically associated with functional decline. We performed single-cell RNA sequencing of -cells from 3 and 26 month old mice to explore how changes in gene expression contribute to improved function with age. The old mice were healthy, had reduced blood glucose levels and increased -cell mass, which correlated to their body weight. -cells from young and old mice had similar transcriptome profiles. In fact, only 193 genes (0.89% of all detected genes) were significantly regulated ( 2-fold; false discovery rate < 0.01; normalized counts > 5). Of these, 183 were downregulated and mainly associated with pathways regulating gene expression, cell cycle, cell death and survival as well as cellular movement, function and maintenance. Collectively, our data show that -cells from very old mice have transcriptome profiles similar to those of young mice. These data support previous findings that aging is not associated with reduced -cell mass or functional -cell decline in mice. SOURCE: Yurong Xin (yurong.xin@regeneron.com) -  Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Pluto Bioinformatics

GSE83146: Single-Cell RNAseq Reveals That Pancreatic -Cells From Very Old Male Mice Have a Young Gene Signature