A Key Role for Altered Dendritic Cell Functioning in the Impaired Immunity Seen in Aged Individuals
Bibliographic record
Abstract
It has been recognized for some time that there is a significant decline in multiple facets of immune functioning with age. Prominent amongst these are changes in the T-cell mediated arm of the immune response, with altered numbers and subsets of cells recorded; and a general preponderance of activated (“effete”) memory T cells; and a relatively impaired ability to generate novel immune responses to newly encountered antigens. Subtle changes in both the B cell arm of the immune response, and of the numbers/function of other cells belonging to the innate immune system (macrophages, mast cells, neutrophils etc) are also reported. Given the importance to normal immunity of cytokines (molecules produced by cells of the immune system which are used to communicate both within the immune system itself and with other physiological systems in the body) it is not surprising to find that there is also a growing body of data to support the hypothesis that altered cytokine production, either qualitative and/or quantitative, may help explain age-related changes in immune function. We have been intrigued by the more recent data suggesting that altered immune functioning in aged individuals may reflect an imbalance in the natural (homeostatic) cellular regulatory arm of the immune system. There is a wealth of data suggesting that regulatory T cells (Treg) exist as multiple independent cell populations in normal healthy individuals, and that their altered functioning may control susceptibility to autoimmune disease, cancer, transplant rejection, infection, allergy, and even fetal loss. Development of Treg is under “tight” control by populations of dendritic cells (DCs) which control their development/activation. Accordingly we hypothesize that the most significant perturbation in the aged immune system may reside in altered development of DCs (numbers and/or function) which in turn could impair Treg development and have profound consequences to the immune system as a whole. Keywords: Dendritic Cell, Aged Individuals, T cells, immune system, cytokines
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".