Cover image

In Chinese symbolism, an elderly person holding a peach and standing on auspicious clouds with a crane, symbolizes luck, wisdom, and longevity. In this issue, Xiao et al. report the transcriptional profiles of peripheral white blood cells from centenarians, centenarian-children, and their spouses and find that autophagy-lysosomal function is significantly enhanced in centenarians. Decreased intracellular accumulation of waste products via enhanced autophagy (shown in the clouds at bottom) may serve as a mechanism to prolong healthy life span. (Cover artwork by Fu-Hui Xiao and Shanghai Bangtu Culture Media Co., Ltd. [For details, see Xiao et al., pp. 1601–1610.])