The aging common marmoset's immune system: From junior to senior

The social, health, and economic challenges of a steadily increasing aging population demand the use of appropriate translational animal models to address questions like healthy aging, vaccination strategies, or potential interventions during the aging process. Due to their genetic proximity to humans, especially nonhuman primates (NHPs) with a relatively short generation period compared to humans, qualify as excellent animal models for these purposes. The use of common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) in gerontology research steadily increased over the last decades, yet important information about their aging parameters are still missing. We therefore aimed to characterize their aging immune system by comprehensive flow cytometric phenotyping of blood immune cells from juvenile, adult, aging, and geriatric animals. Aged and geriatric animals displayed clear signs of immunosenescence. A decline in CD4/CD8 ratio, increased expression of HLA‐DR and PD‐1, higher frequencies of CD95+ memory cells, alterations in cytokine secretion, and a decline in the proliferative capacity proved T cell senescence in aging marmosets. Also, the B cell compartment was affected by age‐related changes: while overall B cell numbers remained stable with advancing age, expression of the activation marker CD80 increased and immunoglobulin M expression decreased. Interestingly, marmoset B cell memory subset distribution rather mirrored the human situation than that of other NHP. CD21+ CD27− naïve B cell frequencies decreased while those of CD21− CD27− tissue memory B cells increased with age. Furthermore, frequencies and numbers of NK cells as part of the innate immune system declined with advancing age. Thus, the observed immunological changes in common marmosets over their life span revealed several similarities to age‐related changes in humans and encourages further studies to strengthen the common marmoset as a potential aging model. Correlation between immune cell frequencies and age in juvenile, adult, aging, and geriatric common marmosets. Research Highlights Immunological investigations of the aging process in common marmosets revealed changes in different immune cell subsets. Due to similar immunological changes during aging, this species is proposed as a potential translational animal model in gerontology research.