Whether aging alone causes anemia is still controversial. In this study, we show that 28-month-old male C57BL/6 mice, maintained in a pathogen-free environment, had significantly lower hemoglobin, hematocrit, and erythrocyte counts than young mice. The anemic condition aggravated further from 28 to 30 months. Old mice displayed increased erythropoietic activity, evidenced by an increase in reticulocyte counts, serum erythropoietin, and splenic expression of erythropoietic genes. An increase in late-stage erythroid progenitors was detected in spleen but not in bone marrow of the old mice. However, old mice also had lower serum iron and transferrin saturation, as well as lower erythrocyte iron incorporation rate. Testosterone supplementation restored serum iron status in old mice to levels similar to that of young adults, further upregulated splenic expression of erythropoietic genes, increased splenic erythroid progenitors, and significantly improved the red cell index. In conclusion, we found that mice can become anemic at very old age without apparent illness. The endogenous compensatory erythropoietic activity was insufficient to normalize the red cell index in old mice, either due to impaired iron homeostasis, ineffective erythropoiesis, or other unknown factors. Testosterone supplementation normalized the iron status and further stimulated splenic erythropoietic activity; both may contribute to improve the anemic condition in the old mice.
Keywords: Aging; Anemia; Erythropoiesis; Iron bioavailability.; Testosterone.