Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Age-Associated B Cell And T Helper Cell Dysfunction In Rhesus Macaques, Evan Knox Stalvig

Theses and Dissertations

The immune system undergoes drastic changes as we age, known as immunosenescence. An example of this is the dysfunction and subpopulation distribution changes of immune cells. Due to immunosenescence, the elderly have a higher risk of complications and rapid progression of new challenges to the immune system, including human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). In an effort to determine the mechanism of dysfunction of humoral immunity due to age, I compared B cell and T cell responses to non-specific, mitogenic stimuli between aged and young adult rhesus macaque peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs). Analysis by flow cytometry revealed several differences in B …