How to Slow down the Ticking Clock: Age-Associated Epigenetic Alterations and Related Interventions to Extend Life Span
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Institute for Genome Biology, Research Institute for Farm Animal Biology (FBN), 18196 Dummerstorf, Germany
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Research Group Epigenetics, Metabolism and Longevity, Research Institute for Farm Animal Biology (FBN), 18196 Dummerstorf, Germany
3
Institute of Neuroregeneration and Neurorehabilitation of Qingdao University, Qingdao 266071, China
*
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editors: Gil Atzmon, Michael Klutstein and Yitzhak Reizel
Cells 2022, 11(3), 468; https://doi.org/10.3390/cells11030468
Received: 3 January 2022
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Accepted: 26 January 2022
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Published: 29 January 2022
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Epigenetic Mechanisms of Longevity and Aging)
Epigenetic alterations pose one major hallmark of organismal aging. Here, we provide an overview on recent findings describing the epigenetic changes that arise during aging and in related maladies such as neurodegeneration and cancer. Specifically, we focus on alterations of histone modifications and DNA methylation and illustrate the link with metabolic pathways. Age-related epigenetic, transcriptional and metabolic deregulations are highly interconnected, which renders dissociating cause and effect complicated. However, growing amounts of evidence support the notion that aging is not only accompanied by epigenetic alterations, but also at least in part induced by those. DNA methylation clocks emerged as a tool to objectively determine biological aging and turned out as a valuable source in search of factors positively and negatively impacting human life span. Moreover, specific epigenetic signatures can be used as biomarkers for age-associated disorders or even as targets for therapeutic approaches, as will be covered in this review. Finally, we summarize recent potential intervention strategies that target epigenetic mechanisms to extend healthy life span and provide an outlook on future developments in the field of longevity research.
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Keywords:
histone modification; DNA methylation; metabolism; longevity; health span; biomarker; age-associated disorders; methylation clock; DNAm age; accelerated epigenetic aging; microbiome; single-cell sequencing; deep learning
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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
MDPI and ACS Style
Galow, A.-M.; Peleg, S. How to Slow down the Ticking Clock: Age-Associated Epigenetic Alterations and Related Interventions to Extend Life Span. Cells 2022, 11, 468. https://doi.org/10.3390/cells11030468
AMA Style
Galow A-M, Peleg S. How to Slow down the Ticking Clock: Age-Associated Epigenetic Alterations and Related Interventions to Extend Life Span. Cells. 2022; 11(3):468. https://doi.org/10.3390/cells11030468
Chicago/Turabian StyleGalow, Anne-Marie, and Shahaf Peleg. 2022. "How to Slow down the Ticking Clock: Age-Associated Epigenetic Alterations and Related Interventions to Extend Life Span" Cells 11, no. 3: 468. https://doi.org/10.3390/cells11030468
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