Proteomic aging signatures across mouse organs and life stages

Abstract

Aging is associated with the accumulation of molecular damage, functional decline, increasing disease prevalence, and ultimately mortality. Although our system-wide understanding of aging has significantly progressed at the genomic and transcriptomic levels, the availability of large-scale proteomic datasets remains limited. To address this gap, we have conducted an unbiased quantitative proteomic analysis in male C57BL/6J mice, examining eight key organs (brain, heart, lung, liver, kidney, spleen, skeletal muscle, and testis) across six life stages (3, 5, 8, 14, 20, and 26-month-old animals). Our results reveal age-associated organ-specific as well as systemic proteomic alterations, with the earliest and most extensive changes observed in the kidney and spleen, followed by liver and lung, while the proteomic profiles of brain, heart, testis, and skeletal muscle remain more stable. Isolation of the non-blood-associated proteome allowed us to identify organ-specific aging processes, including oxidative phosphorylation in the kidney and lipid metabolism in the liver, alongside shared aging signatures. Trajectory and network analyses further reveal key protein hubs linked to age-related proteomic shifts. These results provide a system-level resource of protein changes during aging in mice, and identify potential molecular regulators of age-related decline.