Table 1

The signature of immunosenescence

Adaptive immunity

Decline of naïve T cells

Enrichment of memory/effector T cells

Accumulation of CD8⁺CD28^- T cells

Less pronounced accumulation of CD4⁺CD28^- T cells

Contraction of diversity in the immune repertoire

Innate immunity

Bias of the hematopoietic stem cell towards the myeloid lineage

Maintained expression of pattern recognition receptors (for example, TLR)

Dendritic cell trafficking impaired

Decreased dendritic cell response to TLR stimulation

Environmental stressors

Increased infectious load

Reactivation of persistent infections

TLR, Toll-like receptor.

Mohan et al. Arthritis Research & Therapy 2011 13:231   doi:10.1186/ar3358