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Review
. 2021 Nov 12;22(22):12225.
doi: 10.3390/ijms222212225.

Aging, Bone Marrow and Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS): Recent Advances and Future Perspectives

Payal Ganguly  1 , Bradley Toghill  2 , Shelly Pathak  2
Affiliations
Review

Aging, Bone Marrow and Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS): Recent Advances and Future Perspectives

Payal Ganguly et al. Int J Mol Sci. .

Abstract

The aging of bone marrow (BM) remains a very imperative and alluring subject, with an ever-increasing interest among fellow scientists. A considerable amount of progress has been made in this field with the established 'hallmarks of aging' and continued efforts to investigate the age-related changes observed within the BM. Inflammaging is considered as a low-grade state of inflammation associated with aging, and whilst the possible mechanisms by which aging occurs are now largely understood, the processes leading to the underlying changes within aged BM remain elusive. The ability to identify these changes and detect such alterations at the genetic level are key to broadening the knowledgebase of aging BM. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) is an important molecular-level application presenting the ability to not only determine genomic base changes but provide transcriptional profiling (RNA-seq), as well as a high-throughput analysis of DNA-protein interactions (ChIP-seq). Utilising NGS to explore the genetic alterations occurring over the aging process within alterative cell types facilitates the comprehension of the molecular and cellular changes influencing the dynamics of aging BM. Thus, this review prospects the current landscape of BM aging and explores how NGS technology is currently being applied within this ever-expanding field of research.

Keywords: aging; bone marrow; genomics; inflammaging; next-generation sequencing (NGS); stem cells.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Basic next-generation sequencing (NGS) workflow adapted from Reference [25].
Figure 2
Figure 2
An overview of the lineages arising from the HSC and MSC populations.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Underlying causes of aging inside the BM, recreated and adapted using information from Lopez Otin et al. [4] and González-Gualda et al. [31].
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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