Short report

Age and immunity

Sonya Vasto¹ , Marco Malavolta² and Graham Pawelec³

¹  Dipartimento di Biopatologia e Metodologie Biomediche, Università di Palermo, Italia

²  Immunology Ctr.(Sect.: Nutrition, Immunity and Ageing)Res. Dept. INRCA, Ancona Italia

³  Center for Medical Research, University of Tübingen, D-72072 Tübingen, Germany

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Immunity & Ageing 2006, 3:2doi:10.1186/1742-4933-3-2

Published:	24 February 2006

Abstract

Longitudinal studies are defining progressive alterations to the immune system associated with increased mortality in the very elderly. Many of these changes are exacerbated by or even caused by chronic T cell stimulation by persistent antigen, particularly from Cytomegalovirus. The composition of T cell subsets, their functional integrity and representation in the repertoire are all markedly influenced by age and by CMV. How these findings relate to epidemiological, functional, genetic, genomic and proteomic studies of human T cell immunosenescence was the subject of intense debate at an international conference held just before Christmas 2005 in the Black Forest.