The effect of aging on gene expression of the African turquiose killfiish optic nerve

The short lived African turquoise killifsh (Nothobranchius furzeri, GRZ-AD) is a valuable genetic model for ageing studies, displaying rapid ageing phenotypes within its four to six-month lifespan. Given the glia-dominant composition of the optic nerve, we reasoned that the killifish optic nerve would provide a suitable model to capture these age-related molecular signatures and gain insight into white matter aging.

We therefore performed bulk RNAseq on optic nerves from young-adult (6-week-old) and aged (18-week-old) killifish. Our findings demonstrate that the aging killifish optic nerve reliably recapitulates the core molecular hallmarks of mammalian CNS aging. This conservation supports the use of the killifish optic nerve to resolve and understand how the CNS immune and glial cell populations contribute to these age-associated changes.