ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2016
Age-related declines in immune response in a wild mammal are unrelated to immune cell telomere length.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 32 citations in OpenAlex.
- Range-Wide Assessment of the Tasmanian Devil Gut Microbiome.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- No correlative evidence of costs of infection or immunity on leucocyte telomere length in a wild population of Soay sheep.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Evidence of maternal and paternal age effects on speed in thoroughbred racehorses.Royal Society open science · 2022Article
- Female reproduction and viral infection in a long-lived mammal.The Journal of animal ecology · 2022Article
- Variations in immune parameters with age in a wild rodent population and links with survival.Ecology and evolution · 2022Article
- Telomere length declines with age, but relates to immune function independent of age in a wild passerine.Royal Society open science · 2022Article
- Functionally distinct T-helper cell phenotypes predict resistance to different types of parasites in a wild mammal.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- No sex differences in adult telomere length across vertebrates: a meta-analysis.Royal Society open science · 2020Article
- Experimental manipulation of telomere length: does it reveal a corner-stone role for telomerase in the natural variability of individual fitness?Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2018Article
- Contact networks structured by sex underpin sex-specific epidemiology of infection.Ecology letters · 2018Article
- Cellular and humoral immunity in a wild mammal: Variation with age & sex and association with overwinter survival.Ecology and evolution · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Senescence has been hypothesized to arise in part from age-related declines in immune performance, but the patterns and drivers of within-individual age-related changes in immunity remain virtually unexplored in natural populations. Here, using a long-term epidemiological study of wild European badgers (Meles meles), we (i) present evidence of a within-individual age-related decline in the response of a key immune-signalling cytokine, interferon-gamma (IFNγ), to ex vivo lymphocyte stimulation, and (ii) investigate three putative drivers of individual variation in the rate of this decline (sex, disease and immune cell telomere length; ICTL). That the within-individual rate of age-related decline markedly exceeded that at the population level suggests that individuals with weaker IFNγ responses are selectively lost from this population. IFNγ responses appeared to decrease with the progression of bovine tuberculosis infection (independent of age) and were weaker among males than females. However, neither sex nor disease influenced the rate of age-related decline in IFNγ response. Similarly, while ICTL also declines with age, variation in ICTL predicted neither among- nor within-individual variation in IFNγ response. Our findings provide evidence of within-individual age-related declines in immune performance in a wild mammal and highlight the likely complexity of the mechanisms that generate them.
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Registered trials
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