Kahn Arnold, Fraga Mario F
San Francisco Coordinating Center, California Pacific Medical Center, 185 Berry Street, San Francisco, CA 94107, USA.
J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2009 Feb;64(2):195-8. doi: 10.1093/gerona/gln064. Epub 2009 Feb 27.
The interest in exploring the role of epigenetics in the aging process has grown tremendously in recent years as demonstrated, in part, by the steadily increasing number of papers that have been published in the area. In addition, there has been and continues to be rapid improvement in the technologies needed to do the work. However, significant challenges remain, not the least of which is inherent to the aging process itself, that is, that even given a uniform genetic background and external environment, aging is a "heterogeneous" phenomenon with variation in the expression of the aging phenotype evident both between and within individuals. Thus, there is a pressing need to find experimental approaches that recognize this reality and deal with it effectively whether it is in the choice of animal model, cell, or tissue sampling or the use of techniques capable of analyzing small samples, ideally in situ and in a longitudinal fashion. Undoubtedly, because of the complexity of the situation and what are likely to be very large data sets, bioinformatics and systems biology are also going to be needed, something discussed in detail elsewhere in the report of the meeting.
近年来，探索表观遗传学在衰老过程中的作用的兴趣急剧增长，这在一定程度上表现为该领域发表的论文数量稳步增加。此外，开展这项工作所需的技术一直在并将继续迅速改进。然而，重大挑战依然存在，其中最主要的挑战源于衰老过程本身，也就是说，即使给定统一的遗传背景和外部环境，衰老仍是一种“异质性”现象，个体之间和个体内部衰老表型的表达都存在差异。因此，迫切需要找到能够认识到这一现实并有效应对的实验方法，无论是在动物模型、细胞或组织样本的选择上，还是在使用能够分析小样本的技术上，理想情况下是原位和纵向分析。毫无疑问，由于情况复杂且可能会产生非常庞大的数据集，生物信息学和系统生物学也将不可或缺，本次会议报告的其他地方对此进行了详细讨论。
