These results demonstrate that chronic systemic inflammation observed in obesity induces dysfunctional features in PBMC that are consistent with premature immunosenescence.

Evidence on the relationship between genetics and mental health are flourishing. However, few studies are evaluating early biomarkers that might link genes, environment, and psychopathology. We aimed to study telomere length (TL) and epigenetic age acceleration (AA) in a cohort of adolescents with and without anxiety disorders (N = 234). We evaluated a representative subsample of participants at baseline and after 5 years (n = 76) and categorized them according to their anxiety disorder diagnosis at both time points: (1) control group (no anxiety disorder, n = 18), (2) variable group (anxiety disorder in one evaluation, n = 38), and (3) persistent group (anxiety disorder at both time points, n = 20). We assessed relative mean TL by real-time quantitative PCR and DNA methylation by Infinium HumanMethylation450 BeadChip. We calculated AA using the Horvath age estimation algorithm and analyzed differences among groups using generalized linear mixed models. The persistent group of anxiety disorder did not change TL over time (p = 0.495). The variable group had higher baseline TL (p = 0.003) but no accelerated TL erosion in comparison to the non-anxiety control group (p = 0.053). Furthermore, there were no differences in AA among groups over time. Our findings suggest that adolescents with chronic anxiety did not change telomere length over time, which could be related to a delay in neuronal development in this period of life.

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We introduce PseudoCell, an open-source regulatory network and simulation tool implemented in Java for the analysis of biological network dynamics. PseudoCell provides a customizable and scalable regulatory network of 572 cellular and molecular elements. Based on a systemic perspective, the PseudoCell tool implements a set of computational methods for asynchronous logical model simulation, including the definition of perturbations in constant or pulsatile frequency, as well as knockout emulation. The current version also provides a framework for exporting users' modifications from the network to an online database, as well as importing updated versions. Finally, we validate our results with ex vivo experiments and demonstrate that in silico data generated with PseudoCell can qualitatively reproduce expected findings in the face of increasing stimuli with eotaxin-1 (CCL11) in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells.