Immune aging impairs muscle regeneration via macrophage-derived anti-oxidant selenoprotein P

Muscle regeneration is impaired in the aged organism, due to both intrinsic defects of muscle stem cells (MuSCs) and alterations of their environmental niche. However, the latter has still been poorly explored. Here, we compared and analyzed the time course of the various cell types constituting the MuSC niche during muscle generation in young and old mice. Aging altered the amplification of all niche cells with particularly prominent phenotypes in macrophages that impaired the resolution of inflammation in the old regenerating muscle. RNAsequencing of FACs-isolated MuSCs and non-myogenic niche cells during regeneration uncovered specific profiles and kinetics of genes and molecular pathways differentially regulated in old versus young regenerating muscle, indicating that each cell type responded to aging in a specific manner. Through this, we discovered that macrophages have a strong signature of aging with altered the activation of Selenoprotein P (Sepp1) expression in macrophages during the resolution of inflammation in regenerating muscle. Macrophage-specific deletion of Sepp1 gene was sufficient to impair the acquisition of the repair inflammatory profile, perturbed the support of macrophages to MuSCs in vitro and in vivo, and to cause inefficient skeletal muscle regeneration. When transplanted in aged mice, bone marrow from young WT mice, but not Sepp1 KOs, restored muscle regeneration to youthful levels. Altogether this work provides a unique resource to study the aging of the MuSC niche, reveals that aging of niche cells is asynchronous and establishes impaired macrophage dynamics/polarization and the anti-oxidant Selenoprotein P expression as drivers of age-related decline of muscle regeneration.