Omics · study · 2026
Age-related changes in the phenotype and function of mouse skin macrophages
Listed in NCBI GEO
Skin ageing is accompanied by chronic low-grade inflammation (“inflammaging”) and progressive remodelling of the dermal extracellular matrix, yet the cellular changes that initiate these processes early in life remain poorly defined.
Description
Here we used single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) of dorsal skin from young (8-week), middle-aged (26-week) and aged (52-week) male C57BL/6 mice to map age-related shifts in cellular composition, with a focus on macrophages.
Whereas the relative proportions of most cell types remained largely stable, the macrophage compartment expanded markedly in the oldest skin. Sub-clustering resolved four macrophage populations, three of which expanded or emerged with age. The Mac4 population, marked by S100a8 and S100a9 and a Cd14-high monocyte-derived signature, was detected only in aged skin and was confirmed in situ by F4/80, S100a8 and S100a9 co-staining.
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Cell–cell communication analysis predicted increased macrophage-to-fibroblast signalling in aged skin, including the pro-fibrotic mediators Thbs1 and Spp1, accompanied by up-regulation of collagen and fibrosis-associated genes in a subset of fibroblasts (FB3/FB4). Notably, collagen transcripts increased while COL5A3 protein decreased and dermal collagen architecture appeared disorganised by second-harmonic-generation imaging, pointing to post-transcriptional control of matrix remodelling.
Ex vivo treatment of aged skin with the secretome of γ-irradiated peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC-sec) reduced the macrophage expansion towards a more youthful composition and down-regulated fibrosis-associated fibroblast genes. Together, these findings identify the early emergence of monocyte-derived, pro-inflammatory and potentially pro-fibrotic macrophage subsets as a feature of mouse skin ageing and suggest that PBMC-sec can partially counteract these changes.
Links
Get the data
- GEO FTP directory ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/series/GSE336nnn/GSE336400 ↗
download · from NCBI GEO
Where it is published
- GEO accession page ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/query/acc.cgi?acc=GSE336400 ↗
landing page · from NCBI GEO
Documentation and papers
- PRJNA1481524 ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bioproject/PRJNA1481524 ↗
project · from NCBI GEO
Topics
- Stated by source
- Expression profiling by high throughput sequencing · Mus musculus
- From keywords
- Life Sciences
- Inferred from text
- Imaging 75% · RNA sequencing 75% · Sequencing 75% · Single-cell RNA sequencing 75%
Provenance · 1 source records, 11 field assertions
| Source | Key | Last seen | Raw |
|---|---|---|---|
| NCBI GEO | GSE336400 | 15 d ago | JSON v1 |
| Field | Assertion | Extractor | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| access_level | source · NCBI GEO | connector:ncbi_geo@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[field].local:field:life-sciences | mapping · NCBI GEO | connector:ncbi_geo@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[method].geo_series_type:expression-profiling-by-high-throughput-sequencing | source · NCBI GEO | connector:ncbi_geo@1.0.0 | /gdstype |
| concepts[modality].local:modality:imaging | enrichment · NCBI GEO | keyword-concept-rules@1.0.0 | title+description (75%) |
| concepts[modality].local:modality:rna-seq | enrichment · NCBI GEO | keyword-concept-rules@1.0.0 | title+description (75%) |
| concepts[modality].local:modality:sequencing | enrichment · NCBI GEO | keyword-concept-rules@1.0.0 | title+description (75%) |
| concepts[modality].local:modality:single-cell-rna-seq | enrichment · NCBI GEO | keyword-concept-rules@1.0.0 | title+description (75%) |
| concepts[organism].NCBITaxon:10090 | source · NCBI GEO | connector:ncbi_geo@1.0.0 | /taxon |
| description | source · NCBI GEO | connector:ncbi_geo@1.0.0 | /summary |
| publication_date | source · NCBI GEO | connector:ncbi_geo@1.0.0 | |
| title | source · NCBI GEO | connector:ncbi_geo@1.0.0 | /title |