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EDITORIAL article
Front. Immunol. , 13 February 2025
Sec. Molecular Innate Immunity
Volume 16 - 2025 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2025.1563373
This article is part of the Research Topic Immunesenescence in Innate Immune Cells and Disease Development View all 5 articles
Editorial on the Research Topic
Immunesenescence in innate immune cells and disease development
Population ageing is accelerating worldwide. As per the WHO, the world’s population over 60 years will double by 2050 with 80% living in low and middle income countries. The elderly are highly susceptible to complex age-related-diseases, which represent more economic burden on the medical care systems. Thus, the UN has announced (2020-2030) as the decade of healthy aging in alignment with the last ten years of the SDGs. Despite the presence of different therapeutic strategies, many diseases are spreading in the elderly and are accompanied by therapy resistance. As the age progresses, the immune system losses its proper functional balance, protection against pathogens and homeostatic properties in a condition called inflammaging. The inflammaging is characterized by chronic low-grade inflammation and tissue damage development, which leads to immunesenescence defined as the decline in immune cell function. Moreover, there is an ongoing wave of research supporting the therapeutic role of lifestyle and pharmacological interventions in rejuvenating aged immune system to promote healthy ageing. In this Research Topic, we have compiled research articles contributing to our understanding of disruption of immune system related to immunesenescence and associated diseases.
Soraci et al. addressed the updates and recent advances in innate immunesenescence features related to neurocryptococcosis infection. Cryptococcus neoformans (C. Neoformans andC. gattii) infectious disease of central nervous system (CNS) increases in older adults. The authors demonstrated the immunesenscence as the putative cause of the increased susceptibility to infections in older people. This increase incidence of infection was attributed to the enhanced pro-inflammatory activity of macrophage M1 cells, increased production of Th2 cells and their cytokines, impaired inflammatory response of neutrophils and increased IFN-I mediated neuroinflammatory status related to inflammaging. Dissecting these underlying molecular mechanisms of immunesenescence impact on neurocryptococcosis infection improves understanding of new approaches for prevention and recognition of neurocryptococcosis in older adults.
Immune exhaustion shares overlapping features with immunesenescence; Surendar et al. showed a unique signature of the immune exhaustion in osteomyelitis (OMS). By the detailed enumeration of innate and adaptive immune cells, and their markers, they found increased anti-inflammatory pattern. This pattern was evidenced by increased immune exhaustion phenotype and immune regulatory cells, in addition to decreased immune activation markers along with pronounced involvement of the Tfh memory B cell axis. Together, the study suggested immune modulating therapy as a promising alternative against the OMS infection to dampen the microbial evasion mechanisms in the current era of increased antibiotic resistance.
Other diseases associated with immune features that are common in immunesenescence are also addressed in this Research Topic such as, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and Aspergillus fumigatus keratitis. The elderly usually suffer from the NAFLD complications more than the young people. Guo et al. reviewed the advances of the cutting-edge technologies such as, single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA seq) and time-of-flight mass spectrometry flow cytometry, etc … in identification of the innate and adaptive immunological mechanisms involved in the NAFLD pathology. They improved the understanding of the accumulation and activation molecular mechanisms of immune cells in NAFLD. Senescent microenvironment is characterized by accumulation of innate immune cells, especially macrophage. Guibo et al. studied the molecular mechanisms driving the polarization of macrophages in Aspergillus fumigatus infection. The studypresented the Dectin-1 as an indispensable player in inflammatory macrophage polarization in the antifungal innate immunity through the MAPK signaling pathway in fungal keratitis.
Highlighting the mechanisms involved in immunesenescence will improve the understanding of the development, interpretation, diagnosis or manipulation of its associated diseases. The four articles published in this Research Topic have contributed to address the updates and recent advances in immunesenescence microenvironment. We believe the outcomes of these research groups also suggested potential markers and therapeutic targets combatting immunesenscence.
RM: Conceptualization, Writing – original draft.
The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
Keywords: aging, immunesenescence, immune-associated diseases, macrophages, immune exhaustion
Citation: Mohamed RH (2025) Editorial: Immunesenescence in innate immune cells and disease development. Front. Immunol. 16:1563373. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1563373
Received: 19 January 2025; Accepted: 04 February 2025;
Published: 13 February 2025.
Edited and Reviewed by:
Francesca Granucci, University of Milano-Bicocca, ItalyCopyright © 2025 Mohamed. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Rania Hassan Mohamed, cmFuaWEuaGFzc2FuQHNjaS5hc3UuZWR1LmVn
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
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