Sensitivity of primary fibroblasts in culture to atmospheric oxygen does not correlate with species lifespan

Differences in the way human and mouse fibroblasts experience senescence in culture had long puzzled researchers. While senescence of human cells is mediated by telomere shortening, Parrinello et al. demonstrated that senescence of mouse cells is caused by extreme oxygen sensitivity. It was hypothesized that the striking difference in oxygen sensitivity between mouse and human cells explains their different rates of aging. To test if this hypothesis is broadly applicable, we cultured cells from 16 rodent species with diverse lifespans in 3% and 21% oxygen and compared their growth rates. Unexpectedly, fibroblasts derived from laboratory mouse strains were the only cells demonstrating extreme sensitivity to oxygen. Cells from hamster, muskrat, woodchuck, capybara, blind mole rat, paca, squirrel, beaver, naked mole rat and wild‐caught mice were mildly sensitive to oxygen, while cells from rat, gerbil, deer mouse, chipmunk, guinea pig and chinchilla showed no difference in the growth rate between 3% and 21% oxygen. We conclude that, although the growth of primary fibroblasts is generally improved by maintaining cells in 3% oxygen, the extreme oxygen sensitivity is a peculiarity of laboratory mouse strains, possibly related to their very long telomeres, and fibroblast oxygen sensitivity does not directly correlate with species’ lifespan. www.impactaging. com 841 AGING, May 2016, Vol. 8 No.5 years in a shrew to 211 years in a bowhead whale [1]. Identifying physiological parameters that correlate with these drastic differences in lifespan can lead to insight into the molecular mechanisms of longevity. Human and mouse primary fibroblasts are commonly used by biogerontologists to study cellular senescence. However, human and mouse cells behave very differently during routine culture [2]. Human fibroblasts undergo 50-70 population doublings and then enter an irreversible state of replicative senescence. Replicative senescence of human fibroblasts is triggered by telomere shortening, and these cells never spontaneously bypass senescence arrest. Mouse fibroblasts, in contrast, undergo only 10-15 population doublings and then enter a phase of slow growth, also referred to as senescence or crisis. However, after a few days, fast growing clones of mouse cells emerge and continue to proliferate. Mouse fibroblasts express telomerase and senescence in such cells is not related to telomere shortening. This difference between human and mouse cell behavior had caused a great deal of controversy in the field until Parrinello et al. [3] demonstrated that the slow proliferation of mouse fibroblast cultures results from a high sensitivity to atmospheric oxygen. Mouse cells grown in 3% oxygen proliferated faster and did not display the characteristic slow growth or senescence state as the same cells cultured in 21% oxygen. In addition, mouse cells in 21% oxygen accumulated more oxidative damage than human cells suggesting that the shorter-lived mice cannot efficiently counteract chronic oxidative stress. Oxygen can be damaging to cells and tissues through the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) during oxidative phosphorylation in the mitochondria. ROS react with and damage macromolecules such as enzymes, membrane lipids, and nucleic acids, thereby compromising the integrity of the cell. Early studies with cultured cells already noted that high oxygen levels slow down cell proliferation [4-6]. It was suggested that gradual accumulation of macromolecular damage due to ROS is the causal factor in aging [7, 8]. Studies of longlived mutants with dampened insulin/IGF-1 signaling, such as C. elegans [9-12] and mice [13, 14], suggest that there is a correlation between resistance to oxidative stress and longevity. The finding that mouse cells are strikingly more sensitive to oxidative stress than human cells led to the hypothesis that the ability to prevent and/or repair oxidative damage contributes to the dramatic difference in the rate of aging between humans and mice [3]. To further investigate the possible correlation between oxygen sensitivity and aging, we compared the growth rate of primary fibroblasts under atmospheric (21%) and low oxygen (3%), conditions for 16 different rodent species whose maximum lifespans ranged from 4 to 32 years. In agreement with previous reports, fibroblasts derived from laboratory mice were highly sensitive to oxygen. However, fibroblasts from 9 other species of rodents and fibroblasts from wild-caught mice proliferated only slightly slower in atmospheric oxygen, while fibroblasts from 6 other species proliferated with the same rate in 3% and 21% oxygen. Hence, there was no correlation between species lifespan and oxygen sensitivity. These surprising results suggest that high oxygen sensitivity is a peculiarity of cells from laboratory mice, which possibly arose when wild mice were selectively bred to produce the common inbred laboratory strains. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION To test whether sensitivity of fibroblasts to atmospheric oxygen correlates with lifespan, we cultured fibroblasts from 16 rodent species with lifespans ranging from 4 to 32 years in 3% and 21% oxygen. The list of species and their maximum lifespans are shown in Table 1. Primary fibroblasts were isolated from either skin or lung at 3% oxygen and frozen at PD<5. Only cells at low PD were used for the experiments to avoid selection of mutated clones. For each species, at least three cell lines, including both lung and skin fibroblasts, from three individual animals were examined. Lung and skin fibroblasts from the same species responded similarly to oxygen, therefore we pooled the results for lung and skin cells. Each cell line was taken out of liquid nitrogen storage, passaged once at 3% oxygen and then split into 3% and 21% oxygen conditions. Next, we compared the rate of growth under these conditions. We chose to compare the rate of growth rather than appearance of “senescence”, because the transient slowing of proliferation observed in mouse cells in 21% oxygen is highly variable among different cell lines. In agreement with previous reports [3], we observed that cells derived from laboratory mice proliferated much slower (4.5-fold) in 21% oxygen than in 3% oxygen. Interestingly, cells isolated from wild-caught mice were markedly less sensitive to culture in atmospheric oxygen (Figure 1). Although the wild mouse cells proliferated slower in atmospheric oxygen the difference in growth rate was only 1.6-fold. Cells from 9 species, including squirrel, capybara, woodchuck, hamster, naked mole rat, paca, muskrat, blind mole rat, and beaver, showed mild sensitivity to atmospheric oxygen, proliferating between 1.3and 2fold faster in 3% oxygen than in 21% oxygen. Cells www.impactaging. com 842 AGING, May 2016, Vol. 8 No.5 from 6 species, including guinea pig, gerbil, rat, chipmunk, deer mouse, and chinchilla, showed no difference in proliferation rates between high and low oxygen conditions. To test whether oxygen sensitivity correlates with species lifespan, we calculated the slope of the initial logarithmic segment of the cell growth curve for each species under high and low oxygen conditions. The ratio between cell proliferation rates in low versus high oxygen showed no significant correlation to species maximum lifespan (r = 0.0001; P = 0.97) (Figure 2A) or body mass (r = 0.006; P = 0.76) (Figure 2B). The correlation remained nonsignificant after an outlier (laboratory mouse) was excluded: oxygen sensitivity and maximum lifespan (r = 0.135; P = 0.15); oxygen sensitivity and body mass (r = 0.075; P = 0.29) (Figure 2B). With the exception of the house mouse, species in the oxygen-sensitive group tend to be long-lived. Thus, the slower growth in atmospheric oxygen for these species is unlikely to result from deficiency in their ability to repair oxidative damage, and may reflect more stringent cell cycle checkpoints. Human fibroblasts, similarly, show mild sensitivity to oxygen and tend to grow faster in 3% oxygen and can reach higher PDs prior to entering telomere-mediated senescence. These results suggest that resistance to oxidative stress is not necessarily associated with longevity, rather the cells from long-lived species may be more sensitive leading to more efficient elimination of damaged cells. Indeed higher resistance of human lung fibroblasts to oxygen has been associated with a disease condition [15]. Table 1. Maximum lifespan and body mass of the rodent species used in the study