Division of Hematology and Oncology, Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals, Case Comprehensive Cancer Center, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA.
Department of Microbiology, Oslo University Hospital, Case Comprehensive Cancer Center, Oslo 0372, Norway.
Exp Biol Med (Maywood). 2020 Nov;245(17):1543-1551. doi: 10.1177/1535370220947015. Epub 2020 Aug 6.
Aging is associated with DNA methylation (DNAm) changes. Recent advancement of the whole-genome DNAm analysis technology allowed scientists to develop DNAm-based age estimators. A majority of these estimators use DNAm data from a single tissue type such as blood. In 2013, a multi-tissue age estimator using DNAm pattern of 353 CpGs was developed by Steve Horvath. This estimator was named "epigenetic clock", and the improved version using DNAm pattern of 391 CpGs was developed in 2018. The estimated age by epigenetic clock is named DNAmAge. DNAmAge can be used as a biomarker of aging predicting the risk of age-associated diseases and mortality. Although the DNAm-based age estimators were developed, the mechanism of epigenetic aging is still enigmatic. The biological significance of epigenetic aging is not well understood, either. This minireview discusses the current understanding of the mechanism of epigenetic aging and the future direction of aging research.
衰老是与 DNA 甲基化 (DNAm) 变化相关的。全基因组 DNAm 分析技术的最新进展使科学家能够开发基于 DNAm 的年龄估算器。这些估算器大多数使用来自单一组织类型（如血液）的 DNAm 数据。2013 年，Steve Horvath 开发了一种使用 353 个 CpG 的多组织年龄估算器。这个估算器被命名为“表观遗传时钟”，2018 年开发了使用 391 个 CpG 的 DNAm 模式的改进版本。表观遗传时钟估算的年龄称为 DNAmAge。DNAmAge 可用作衰老的生物标志物，预测与年龄相关的疾病和死亡率的风险。尽管已经开发了基于 DNAm 的年龄估算器，但表观遗传衰老的机制仍然神秘莫测。表观遗传衰老的生物学意义也尚未得到很好的理解。这篇小综述讨论了目前对表观遗传衰老机制的理解，以及衰老研究的未来方向。
