|
|||||
|
|
Accelerated epigenetic aging in Down syndrome |
|
| Authors: | Maria Giulia Bacalini Chiara Pirazzini Stefano Salvioli Davide Gentilini Anna Maria Di Blasio Cristina Giuliani Spencer Tung Harry V Vinters Claudio Franceschi |
| Institution: | 1. Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy;2. Interdepartmental Center ‘L. Galvani’, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy;3. Personal Genomics S.r.l., Verona, Italy;4. Center of Research and Biomedical Technology, Istituto Auxologico Italiano IRCCS, Cusano Milanino, Milan, Italy;5. Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy;6. Department of Neurology and Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA;7. IRCCS, Institute of Neurological Sciences of Bologna, Bologna, Italy |
| Abstract: | Down Syndrome (DS) entails an increased risk of many chronic diseases that are typically associated with older age. The clinical manifestations of accelerated aging suggest that trisomy 21 increases the biological age of tissues, but molecular evidence for this hypothesis has been sparse. Here, we utilize a quantitative molecular marker of aging (known as the epigenetic clock) to demonstrate that trisomy 21 significantly increases the age of blood and brain tissue (on average by 6.6 years, P = 7.0 × 10−14). |
| Keywords: | biomarker of aging DNA methylation Down syndrome epigenetics |