Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Identifier

6401

Date

2019

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Major

Nutrition

Concentration

Nutrition Science

Committee Chair

Brandt Pence

Committee Member

Marie van der Merwe

Committee Member

Liza Makowski

Abstract

Inflammaging is the chronic low-grade inflammation that occurs with age that contributes to the pathology of age-related diseases. Monocytes are innate immune cells that become dysregulated with age and which can contribute to inflammaging. Metabolism plays a key role in determining immune cell functions, with anti-inflammatory cells primarily relying on fatty acid oxidation and pro-inflammatory cells primarily relying on glycolysis. It was recently shown that lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated monocytes can compensate for a lack of glucose by utilizing fatty acid oxidation. Given that mitochondrial function decreases with age, we hypothesized that monocytes taken from aged individuals would have an impaired ability to upregulate oxidative metabolism and would have impaired effector functions. Aging did not impair LPS-induced oxygen consumption rate during glucose deprivation as measured on a Seahorse XFp system. Additionally, aged monocytes maintained inflammatory gene expression responses and phagocytic capacity during LPSstimulation in the absence of glucose. In conclusion, aged monocytes maintain effector and metabolic functions during glucose deprivation, at least in an ex vivo context.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to the local University of Memphis Electronic Theses & dissertation (ETD) Repository.

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