Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Age is a characteristic that often defines our health and lifestyle and is one of life's most basic processes. There are two definitions of age: chronological and biological. Chronological age refers to the number of years someone has been alive, whereas the latter is defined by a combination in differences of lifestyle choices and chronic diseases. As we age, systems can deteriorate. One such system important for biological age is inflammation, a defense mechanism to both warn our bodies of invaders and heal any damage we encounter. With increased biological age, our bodies enter a state of chronic and overactive inflammation known as age-associated inflammation. Although this idea was discovered decades ago, the reasons behind it remain unknown. Our laboratory has demonstrated in our mouse model that gut bacteria change with increased age. We believe these changes play a role in age-associated inflammation. We investigated how changes in the proportion of certain bacteria are associated with factors related to aging . These factors consist of: frailty, high blood sugar, and loss of muscle strength. The purpose of this project is to identify bacteria that are associated with increases in these age-related factors and determine their role in unhealthy aging. We will isolate gut bacteria associated with increases in any of these factors. To test their effects we will infect germ free mice - mice that have no gut bacteria of their own - and measure blood sugar and inflammatory markers. We expect these strains to cause increased blood sugar and inflammatory status in these mice. Our findings will begin to identify the role of the gut bacteria play in age-associated inflammation and begin to unravel the causes of aging.