Atlas maps how aging reshapes cells ^{CEFR B1}

A team at Rockefeller University published a detailed atlas of how aging reshapes cells across the mammalian body. The study profiled nearly 7 million individual cells from 21 organs in 32 mice at three ages: one month, five months and 21 months. Junyue Cao led the work, with major contributions from graduate student Ziyu Lu.

The researchers optimized single-cell ATAC-seq to read which parts of DNA are accessible in each cell. They identified more than 1,800 cell subtypes, including many rare types, and found that about a quarter of all cell types showed significant shifts in abundance from young adulthood to old age. Some muscle and kidney cells declined, while immune cells expanded.

Many changes began by five months, which suggests aging continues developmental processes. Similar cellular states rose or fell across different tissues, implying coordinating signals such as circulating blood factors. The team also found strong sex differences: about 40% of aging-associated changes differed between males and females, with broader immune activation in females. The researchers noted genomic shifts and links to immune function, inflammation and stem cell maintenance, and they made the full atlas available at epiage.net.