MRC Centre for Environment and Health, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Imperial College London, London, UK.
Int J Cancer. 2021 Jun 1;148(11):2652-2663. doi: 10.1002/ijc.33451. Epub 2021 Jan 9.
Cancer is well established as an age-associated disease, and there is substantial overlap in the molecular, cellular and physiological changes observed with both ageing and the progression of cancer. Age-specific declines in resilience mechanisms such as DNA repair or epigenetic maintenance may contribute to the development of cancer. These declines may be assessed through biomarkers that measure biological age and through the related concept of "age acceleration". Epigenetic clocks, assessed through DNA methylation levels, are among the most widely used biological age markers in cancer studies. In this review, we discuss the use of DNA methylation ageing measures to predict population cancer incidence, mortality and survival. Blood-based DNA methylation age estimators appear to be promising measures of increased cancer risk and mortality, although their reported effects are generally weak, thus its clinical relevance remains to be validated in large case-cohort and longitudinal studies. Future development of epigenetic and other biological age biomarkers will likely further elucidate the links between ageing and cancer.
癌症是一种公认的与年龄相关的疾病，衰老和癌症进展过程中观察到的分子、细胞和生理变化有很大的重叠。DNA 修复或表观遗传维持等弹性机制的年龄特异性下降可能导致癌症的发展。这些下降可以通过测量生物年龄的生物标志物和相关的“年龄加速”概念来评估。通过 DNA 甲基化水平评估的表观遗传时钟是癌症研究中使用最广泛的生物年龄标志物之一。在这篇综述中，我们讨论了使用 DNA 甲基化年龄测量来预测人群癌症发病率、死亡率和生存率。基于血液的 DNA 甲基化年龄估算值似乎是癌症风险和死亡率增加的有前途的衡量标准，尽管它们的报道效果通常较弱，因此其临床相关性仍需要在大型病例队列和纵向研究中得到验证。未来对表观遗传和其他生物年龄生物标志物的发展可能会进一步阐明衰老和癌症之间的联系。
