Methylation of <scp><i>ELOVL</i></scp><i>2</i> gene as a new epigenetic marker of age

Paolo Garagnani(University of Bologna), Maria Giulia Bacalini(University of Bologna), Chiara Pirazzini(University of Bologna), Davide Gori(University of Bologna), Cristina Giuliani(University of Bologna), Daniela Mari(University of Milan), Anna Maria Di Blasio(IRCCS Istituto Auxologico Italiano), Davide Gentilini(IRCCS Istituto Auxologico Italiano), Giovanni Vitale(University of Milan), Sebastiano Collino(Nestlé (Switzerland)), Serge Rezzi(Nestlé (Switzerland)), Gastone Castellani(University of Bologna), Miriam Capri(University of Bologna), Stefano Salvioli(University of Bologna), Claudio Franceschi(University of Bologna)
Aging Cell
September 12, 2012
10.1111/acel.12005
Cited by 495Open Access
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Abstract

The discovery of biomarkers able to predict biological age of individuals is a crucial goal in aging research. Recently, researchers' attention has turn toward epigenetic markers of aging. Using the Illumina Infinium HumanMethylation450 BeadChip on whole blood DNA from a small cohort of 64 subjects of different ages, we identified 3 regions, the CpG islands of ELOVL2, FHL2, and PENK genes, whose methylation level strongly correlates with age. These results were confirmed by the Sequenom's EpiTYPER assay on a larger cohort of 501 subjects from 9 to 99 years, including 7 cord blood samples. Among the 3 genes, ELOVL2 shows a progressive increase in methylation that begins since the very first stage of life (Spearman's correlation coefficient = 0.92) and appears to be a very promising biomarker of aging.

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