Epigenetics and Ageing. Correlations with demographic and genetic data.
Giuseppe Passarino, Dina Bellizzi, Serena Dato, Francesco de Rango, Alberto Montesanto, Giuseppina Rose.
Department of Biology, Ecology and Earth Science, University of Calabria, Rende, Italy
The epigenetic profile of an individual is the result of the unique combination of the genetic background and of the environmental factors he/she went through. DNA methylation, represents the most widely studied epigenetic modification. In fact, high throughput technologies allowed to analyze the methylation across DNA, leading to epidemiological studies of the epigenome profile in numerous samples with specific traits.
The studies which investigated the correlation of epigenetic profiles with age have probably summarized the different forces acting on these profiles. Indeed, although some sites have proved to be very precise molecular clock, probably due to genetic determinants, most of the methylation sites have shown to be correlated to the quality of the aging. In particular, we showed that frailty of the elderly is associated to global hypomethylation. On the other hand, a mitochondrial DNA site (bp932) was found to have higher levels of methylation in subjects with a lower survival chance. Horvarth et al (2015) have shown that 105+ subjects, have a methylation profile which does not follow the molecular epigenetic clock.
On the whole, the analysis of methylation profiles shows that a remodeling of the methylome occurs with age and can be an excellent biomarker of aging and the individual age related modification of homeostasis; however, we need to better understand if we can modulate aging by modulating specific epigenetic features.
The authors have no financial interests related to the presented work.
Giuseppe Passarino, Dina Bellizzi, Serena Dato, Francesco de Rango, Alberto Montesanto, Giuseppina Rose.
Department of Biology, Ecology and Earth Science, University of Calabria, Rende, Italy
The epigenetic profile of an individual is the result of the unique combination of the genetic background and of the environmental factors he/she went through. DNA methylation, represents the most widely studied epigenetic modification. In fact, high throughput technologies allowed to analyze the methylation across DNA, leading to epidemiological studies of the epigenome profile in numerous samples with specific traits.
The studies which investigated the correlation of epigenetic profiles with age have probably summarized the different forces acting on these profiles. Indeed, although some sites have proved to be very precise molecular clock, probably due to genetic determinants, most of the methylation sites have shown to be correlated to the quality of the aging. In particular, we showed that frailty of the elderly is associated to global hypomethylation. On the other hand, a mitochondrial DNA site (bp932) was found to have higher levels of methylation in subjects with a lower survival chance. Horvarth et al (2015) have shown that 105+ subjects, have a methylation profile which does not follow the molecular epigenetic clock.
On the whole, the analysis of methylation profiles shows that a remodeling of the methylome occurs with age and can be an excellent biomarker of aging and the individual age related modification of homeostasis; however, we need to better understand if we can modulate aging by modulating specific epigenetic features.
The authors have no financial interests related to the presented work.
