Cited by 476SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 ResearchCOVID-19 Clinical Research StudiesImmune responses and vaccinations

Aging, Immunity, and COVID-19: How Age Influences the Host Immune Response to Coronavirus Infections?

Open access
Bajaj, Varnica, Gadi, Nirupa, Spihlman, Allison P., Wu, Samantha C., Choi, Christopher H., Moulton, Vaishali R.·2021·Frontiers in Physiology

Abstract

The novel coronavirus severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 causing the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has ravaged the world with over 72 million total cases and over 1.6 million deaths worldwide as of early December 2020. An overwhelming preponderance of cases and deaths is observed within the elderly population, and especially in those with pre-existing conditions and comorbidities. Aging causes numerous biological changes in the immune system, which are linked to age-related illnesses and susceptibility to infectious diseases. Age-related changes influence the host immune response and therefore not only weaken the ability to fight respiratory infections but also to mount effective responses to vaccines. Immunosenescence and inflamm-aging are considered key features of the aging immune system wherein accumulation of senescent immune cells contribute to its decline and simultaneously increased inflammatory phenotypes cause immune dysfunction. Age-related quantitative and qualitative changes in the immune system affect cells and soluble mediators of both the innate and adaptive immune responses within lymphoid and non-lymphoid peripheral tissues. These changes determine not only the susceptibility to infections, but also disease progression and clinical outcomes thereafter. Furthermore, the response to therapeutics and the immune response to vaccines are influenced by age-related changes within the immune system. Therefore, better understanding of the pathophysiology of aging and the immune response will not only help understand age-related diseases but also guide targeted management strategies for deadly infectious diseases like COVID-19.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.3389/fphys.2020.571416

Cites

188 of 188 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • SARS-CoV-2 infection together with inflammageing leads to an exaggerated innate immune response and worse COVID-19 outcomes.

    “Thus, SARS-CoV-2 infection combined with inflammageing leads to an exaggerated innate immune response and worsened outcomes of COVID-19.”

    From SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 and the aging immune system (2021) · cites this paper as [91]

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Bajaj, V., Gadi, N., Spihlman, A. P., Wu, S. C., Choi, C. H., & Moulton, V. R.
Affiliations
  • Boston University (US)
  • Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (US)
Corresponding author
Moulton, Vaishali R.
Venue
Frontiers in Physiology
Published
2021-01-12
Volume
11
Pages
571416-571416
ISSN
1664-042X (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W3118375381
Cited by
476
References
188
Citations by year
2026: 17 · 2025: 43 · 2024: 68 · 2023: 128 · 2022: 129 · 2021: 91
FWCI
12.13
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Frontiers in Physiology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
National Institutes of Health
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Infectious Diseases › SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 Research
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Infectious Diseases › COVID-19 Clinical Research Studies
  • Life Sciences › Immunology and Microbiology › Immunology › Immune responses and vaccinations
Keywords
COVID-19 pandemic, SARS-CoV-2, aging, immunosenescence, inflammaging, host immune response, older adults, vaccine response, comorbidities, innate and adaptive immunity, age-related diseases

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review