Osteopontin is Involved in Macrophage Senescence in Aging Fat Tissue

Visceral fat tissue generates inflammation through a range of mechanisms, and this only becomes worse with advancing age. The more visceral fat tissue, the worse the long-term consequences for metabolism, driven by inflammatory signaling. One of these mechanisms is that fat tissue provokes a greater burden of cellular senescence, cells that shut down replication and focus their energies on generating disruptive pro-inflammatory signals. This tendency increases with age. Today's open access paper focuses on the regulation of macrophage senescence in fat tissue, and identifies rising levels of osteopontin with age as an important contributing factor. Macrophages are innate immune cells found throughout the body, responsible for a broad portfolio of tasks that go beyond chasing down pathogens and destroying errant cells to include assisting in tissue maintenance and regeneration. Their activities are important to the state of chronic inflammation. Increased osteopontin levels are implicated in a range of degenerative processes observed in aged tissues. Researchers have considered using osteopontin as a biomarker of aging. Much of this may be due to effects on stem cell function, as in muscle tissue and the hematopoietic system in bone marrow. That in turn may be mediated by inflammatory signaling, given effects on macrophage function noted here. Osteopontin promotes age-related adipose tissue remodeling through senescence-associated macrophage dysfunction ...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs