Single-Cell RNAseq Reveals That Pancreatic β-Cells From Very Old Male Mice Have a Young Gene Signature. Mus musculus

Aging improves pancreatic β-cell function in mice. This is a surprising finding since aging is typically associated with functional decline. We performed single-cell RNA sequencing of β-cells from 3 and 26 month old mice to explore how changes in gene expression contribute to improved function with age. The old mice were healthy, had reduced blood glucose levels and increased β-cell mass, which correlated to their body weight. β-cells from young and old mice had similar transcriptome profiles. In fact, only 193 genes (0.89% of all detected genes) were significantly regulated (≥ 2-fold; false discovery rate 5). Of these, 183 were downregulated and mainly associated with pathways regulating gene expression, cell cycle, cell death and survival as well as cellular movement, function and maintenance. Collectively, our data show that β-cells from very old mice have transcriptome profiles similar to those of young mice. These data support previous findings that aging is not associated with reduced β-cell mass or functional β-cell decline in mice. Overall design: Single-cell RNA sequencing of mouse pancreatic islet beta cells