Chromatin dynamics shape aging across organs.

Aging governs human lifespan and health span through cellular and molecular mechanisms that are incompletely understood. Over time, aging leads to decline in physiological function and increased vulnerability to disease. A crucial question is whether aging mechanisms can be therapeutically modulated before functional decline begins. A key challenge, however, is understanding these mechanisms to the resolution of individual cells across different organs. Mechanistic differences and similarities between sexes are also poorly understood, despite well-known sex-specific disease risks, such as higher prevalence of autoimmune disease in women or Parkinson's disease in men (1). On page 887 of this issue, Lu et al. (2) present a map of sex- and age-associated chromatin landscapes across mouse organs, spanning major cell types and finer-grained cellular states. The study reveals mechanisms associated with aging and establishes a framework to identify candidate therapeutic targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]