Oxysterol signatures distinguish age-related macular degeneration from physiologic aging

Macrophage aging is pathogenic in numerous diseases, including age-related macular degeneration. Although prior studies have explored the functional consequences of macrophage aging, less is known about its cellular basis or what defines the transition from physiologic aging to disease. The purpose of this experiment was to characterize the transcriptomic changes associated with macrophage aging. We prepared 24 samples (N=4/group with 3 treatments and 2 ages). We identified 4 outliers (Yut_1, Yac_1, Oac_1, Oox_1) after principal component analysis and hierarchical clustering, which we omitted from further analysis.