McEwen Lisa M, Morin Alexander M, Edgar Rachel D, MacIsaac Julia L, Jones Meaghan J, Dow William H, Rosero-Bixby Luis, Kobor Michael S, Rehkopf David H
Department of Medical Genetics, Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics, BC Children's Hospital Research Institute, University of British Columbia, 950 West 28th Ave, Vancouver, Canada.
School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA USA.
Epigenetics Chromatin. 2017 Apr 27;10:21. doi: 10.1186/s13072-017-0128-2. eCollection 2017.
The Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica has one of the highest old-age life expectancies in the world, but the underlying biological mechanisms of this longevity are not well understood. As DNA methylation is hypothesized to be a component of biological aging, we focused on this malleable epigenetic mark to determine its association with current residence in Nicoya versus elsewhere in Costa Rica. Examining a population's unique DNA methylation pattern allows us to differentiate hallmarks of longevity from individual stochastic variation. These differences may be characteristic of a combination of social, biological, and environmental contexts.
In a cross-sectional subsample of the Costa Rican Longevity and Healthy Aging Study, we compared whole blood DNA methylation profiles of residents from Nicoya ( = 48) and non-Nicoya (other Costa Rican regions, = 47) using the Infinium HumanMethylation450 microarray.
We observed a number of differences that may be markers of delayed aging, such as bioinformatically derived differential CD8+ T cell proportions. Additionally, both site- and region-specific analyses revealed DNA methylation patterns unique to Nicoyans. We also observed lower overall variability in DNA methylation in the Nicoyan population, another hallmark of younger biological age.
Nicoyans represent an interesting group of individuals who may possess unique immune cell proportions as well as distinct differences in their epigenome, at the level of DNA methylation.
哥斯达黎加的尼科亚半岛拥有世界上最高的老年预期寿命之一，但这种长寿背后的生物学机制尚未完全明确。由于DNA甲基化被认为是生物衰老的一个组成部分，我们聚焦于这种可塑的表观遗传标记，以确定其与目前居住在尼科亚地区或哥斯达黎加其他地区的关联。研究一个群体独特的DNA甲基化模式，使我们能够区分长寿的特征与个体随机变异。这些差异可能是社会、生物和环境背景综合作用的结果。
在哥斯达黎加长寿与健康老龄化研究的横断面子样本中，我们使用Infinium HumanMethylation450芯片，比较了尼科亚地区居民（n = 48）和非尼科亚地区居民（哥斯达黎加其他地区，n = 47）的全血DNA甲基化谱。
我们观察到一些可能是衰老延迟标志物的差异，例如通过生物信息学推导得出的CD8 + T细胞比例差异。此外，位点特异性和区域特异性分析均揭示了尼科亚人独特的DNA甲基化模式。我们还观察到尼科亚人群体中DNA甲基化的总体变异性较低，这是生物年龄较轻的另一个标志。
尼科亚人代表了一个有趣的群体，他们可能拥有独特的免疫细胞比例，并且在DNA甲基化水平上，其表观基因组也存在明显差异。
