Repetitive element transcript accumulation is related to inflammaging in humans

Inflammation is an established feature of many age-related diseases, and growing evidence implicates transcripts from repetitive elements in inflammatory signaling with aging. We generated transcriptomic (RNA-seq) and whole-genome bisulfite sequencing (WGBS, for methylation) data on frozen/biobanked peripheral blood mononuclear cells from middle-aged and older adults, as well as younger and older adults before and after an exercise intervention, to evaluate correlations among repetitive elements and inflammation, along with methylation of repetitive elements. Overall design: RNA-seq was performed on peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) samples from 90 healthy, middle age and older adults. RNA-seq and WGBS were also performed on PBMC samples from a separate study of 10 young, healthy sedentary adults, and 13 healthy sedentary older adults before (T1) and after (T2) a 16-week supervised aerobic training intervention.