%0 Journal Article %A Charlotte Depeux %A Ascel Samba-Louaka %A Thomas Becking %A Christine Braquart-Varnier %A Jérôme Moreau %A Jean-François Lemaître %A Tiffany Laverre %A Hélène Paulhac %A François-Xavier Dechaume-Moncharmont %A Jean-Michel Gaillard %A Sophie Beltran-Bech %T The crustacean Armadillidium vulgare, a new promising model for the study of cellular senescence %D 2019 %R 10.1101/583914 %J bioRxiv %P 583914 %X Senescence, the decline of physiological parameters with increasing age, is a quasi-ubiquitous phenomenon in the living world. However, the observed patterns of senescence can markedly differ between across species and populations, between sexes and even among individuals. To identify the drivers of this variation in senescence, experimental approaches are essential and involve the development of tools and new study models. In fact, current knowledge of the senescence process is mostly based on studies on vertebrates and principal information about senescence in invertebrates is mostly limited to model organisms such as Caenorhabditis elegans or Drosophila melanogaster. In this context, we tested whether biomarkers of vertebrate aging could be used to study senescence in a new invertebrate model: the common woodlouse Armadillidium vulgare. More specifically, we looked for the effect of age in woodlouse on three well established physiological biomarkers of aging in vertebrates: immune cells (cell size, density and viability), β-galactosidase activity, and Telomerase Reverse Transcriptase (TERT) (essential subunit of the telomerase protein) gene expression. We found that the size of immune cells was higher in older individuals, whereas their density and viability decreased, and that the β-galactosidase activity increased with age, whereas the Telomerase Reverse Transcriptase (TERT) gene expression decreased. These findings demonstrate that woodlouse display age-related changes in biomarkers of vertebrate senescence, with different patterns depending on gender. Thus, the tools used in studies of vertebrate senescence can be successfully used in studies of senescence of invertebrates such as the woodlouse. The application of commonly used tools to new biological models offers a promising approach to assess the diversity of senescence patterns across the tree of life. %U https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2019/08/28/583914.full.pdf