Integrative epigenetics and transcriptomics identify aging genes in human blood.

Mahdi Moqri, Kejun Ying, Jesse R Poganik, Chiara Herzog, Qingwen Chen, Mehrnoosh Emamifar, Alexander Tyshkovskiy, Alec Eames, Jure Mur, Dmitrii Glubokov, Benyamin Matei-Dediu, Ludger Goeminne, Wayne Mitchell, Daniel L McCartney, Lucas A Salas, Riccardo E Marioni, Jessica A Lasky-Su, Michael P Snyder, Vadim N Gladyshev

Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA. [email protected] Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA. [email protected]. · pubmed

Paper

Abstract

Recent epigenome-wide studies have identified a large number of genomic regions that consistently exhibit changes in their methylation status with aging across diverse populations, but the functional consequences of these changes are largely unknown. On the other hand, transcriptomic changes are more easily interpreted than epigenetic alterations, but previously identified age-related gene expression changes have shown limited replicability across populations. Here, we develop an approach that leverages high-resolution multi-omic data for an integrative analysis of epigenetic and transcriptomic age-related changes and identify genomic regions associated with both epigenetic and transcriptomic age-dependent changes in blood. Our results show that these multi-omic aging genes in blood are enriched for adaptive immune functions, replicate more robustly across diverse populations and are more strongly associated with aging-related outcomes compared to the genes identified using epigenetic or transcriptomic data alone. These multi-omic aging genes may serve as targets for epigenetic editing to facilitate cellular rejuvenation.

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Research summary

The paper claims that integrating epigenetic and transcriptomic data can identify multi-omic aging genes in human blood that are associated with aging-related outcomes. This research is relevant as it addresses the underlying biological mechanisms of aging and identifies potential targets for interventions aimed at rejuvenation and lifespan extension.

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