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Andrawus M, David GB, Terziyska I, Sharvit L, Bergman A, Barzilai N, Raj SM, Govindaraju DR, Atzmon G. Genome integrity as a potential index of longevity in Ashkenazi Centenarian's families. GeroScience 2024; 46:4147-4162. [PMID: 38724875 PMCID: PMC11335978 DOI: 10.1007/s11357-024-01178-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/01/2023] [Accepted: 04/24/2024] [Indexed: 06/19/2024] Open
Abstract
The aging process, or senescence, is characterized by age-specific decline in physical and physiological function, and increased frailty and genomic changes, including mutation accumulation. However, the mechanisms through which changes in genomic architecture influence human longevity have remained obscure. Copy number variants (CNVs), an abundant class of genomic variants, offer unique opportunities for understanding age-related genomic changes. Here we report the spectrum of CNVs in a cohort of 670 Ashkenazi Jewish centenarians, their progeny, and unrelated controls. The average ages of these groups were 97.4 ± 2.8, 69.2 ± 9.2, and 66.5 ± 7.0 respectively. For the first time, we compared different size classes of CNVs, from 1 kB to 100 MB in size. Using a high-resolution custom Affymetrix array, targeting 44,639 genomic regions, we identified a total of 12,166, 22,188, and 10,285 CNVs in centenarians, their progeny, and control groups, respectively. Interestingly, the offspring group showed the highest number of unique CNVs, followed by control and centenarians. While both gains and losses were found in all three groups, centenarians showed a significantly higher average number of both total gains and losses relative to their controls (p < 0.0327, 0.0182, respectively). Moreover, centenarians showed a lower total length of genomic material lost, suggesting that they may maintain superior genomic integrity over time. We also observe a significance fold increase of CNVs among the offspring, implying greater genomic integrity and a putative mechanism for longevity preservation. Genomic regions that experienced loss or gains appear to be distributed across many sites in the genome and contain genes involved in DNA transcription, cellular transport, developmental pathways, and metabolic functions. Our findings suggest that the exceptional longevity observed in centenarians may be attributed to the prolonged maintenance of functionally important genes. These genes are intrinsic to specific genomic regions as well as to the overall integrity of the genomic architecture. Additionally, a strong association between longer CNVs and differential gene expression observed in this study supports the notion that genomic integrity could positively influence longevity.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Gil Ben David
- Sagol Department of Neurobiology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Haifa, 199 Aba Khoushy Ave., 3498838, Mount Carmel, Haifa, Israel
| | | | - Lital Sharvit
- Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
| | - Aviv Bergman
- Department of Systems and Computational Biology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, 10461, USA
| | - Nir Barzilai
- Departments of Medicine and Genetics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, 10461, USA
| | - Srilakshmi M Raj
- Department of Genetics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, 10461, USA
| | | | - Gil Atzmon
- Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.
- Departments of Medicine and Genetics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, 10461, USA.
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Smulders L, Deelen J. Genetics of human longevity: From variants to genes to pathways. J Intern Med 2024; 295:416-435. [PMID: 37941149 DOI: 10.1111/joim.13740] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/10/2023]
Abstract
The current increase in lifespan without an equivalent increase in healthspan poses a grave challenge to the healthcare system and a severe burden on society. However, some individuals seem to be able to live a long and healthy life without the occurrence of major debilitating chronic diseases, and part of this trait seems to be hidden in their genome. In this review, we discuss the findings from studies on the genetic component of human longevity and the main challenges accompanying these studies. We subsequently focus on results from genetic studies in model organisms and comparative genomic approaches to highlight the most important conserved longevity-associated pathways. By combining the results from studies using these different approaches, we conclude that only five main pathways have been consistently linked to longevity, namely (1) insulin/insulin-like growth factor 1 signalling, (2) DNA-damage response and repair, (3) immune function, (4) cholesterol metabolism and (5) telomere maintenance. As our current approaches to study the relevance of these pathways in humans are limited, we suggest that future studies on the genetics of human longevity should focus on the identification and functional characterization of rare genetic variants in genes involved in these pathways.
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Affiliation(s)
- Larissa Smulders
- Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing, Cologne, Germany
- Cologne Excellence Cluster on Cellular Stress Responses in Ageing-Associated Diseases (CECAD), University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany
| | - Joris Deelen
- Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing, Cologne, Germany
- Cologne Excellence Cluster on Cellular Stress Responses in Ageing-Associated Diseases (CECAD), University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany
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Milman S, Barzilai N. Discovering Biological Mechanisms of Exceptional Human Health Span and Life Span. Cold Spring Harb Perspect Med 2023; 13:a041204. [PMID: 37137499 PMCID: PMC10513160 DOI: 10.1101/cshperspect.a041204] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/05/2023]
Abstract
Humans age at different rates and families with exceptional longevity provide an opportunity to understand why some people age slower than others. Unique features exhibited by centenarians include a family history of extended life span, compression of morbidity with resultant extension of health span, and longevity-associated biomarker profiles. These biomarkers, including low-circulating insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) and elevated high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol levels, are associated with functional genotypes that are enriched in centenarians, suggesting that they may be causative for longevity. While not all genetic discoveries from centenarians have been validated, in part due to exceptional life span being a rare phenotype in the general population, the APOE2 and FOXO3a genotypes have been confirmed in a number of populations with exceptional longevity. However, life span is now recognized as a complex trait and genetic research methods to study longevity are rapidly extending beyond classical Mendelian genetics to polygenic inheritance methodologies. Moreover, newer approaches are suggesting that pathways that have been recognized for decades to control life span in animals may also regulate life span in humans. These discoveries led to strategic development of therapeutics that may delay aging and prolong health span.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sofiya Milman
- Institute for Aging Research, Department of Medicine, Divisions of Endocrinology and Geriatrics, Department of Genetics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York 10461, USA
| | - Nir Barzilai
- Institute for Aging Research, Department of Medicine, Divisions of Endocrinology and Geriatrics, Department of Genetics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York 10461, USA
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Hu D, Li Y, Zhang D, Ding J, Song Z, Min J, Zeng Y, Nie C. Genetic trade-offs between complex diseases and longevity. Aging Cell 2022; 21:e13654. [PMID: 35754110 PMCID: PMC9282840 DOI: 10.1111/acel.13654] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/16/2021] [Revised: 02/28/2022] [Accepted: 05/26/2022] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Longevity was influenced by many complex diseases and traits. However, the relationships between human longevity and genetic risks of complex diseases were not broadly studied. Here, we constructed polygenic risk scores (PRSs) for 225 complex diseases/traits and evaluated their relationships with human longevity in a cohort with 2178 centenarians and 2299 middle‐aged individuals. Lower genetic risks of stroke and hypotension were observed in centenarians, while higher genetic risks of schizophrenia (SCZ) and type 2 diabetes (T2D) were detected in long‐lived individuals. We further stratified PRSs into cell‐type groups and significance‐level groups. The results showed that the immune component of SCZ genetic risk was positively linked to longevity, and the renal component of T2D genetic risk was the most deleterious. Additionally, SNPs with very small p‐values (p ≤ 1x10‐5) for SCZ and T2D were negatively correlated with longevity. While for the less significant SNPs (1x10‐5 < p ≤ 0.05), their effects on disease and longevity were positively correlated. Overall, we identified genetically informed positive and negative factors for human longevity, gained more insights on the accumulation of disease risk alleles during evolution, and provided evidence for the theory of genetic trade‐offs between complex diseases and longevity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dingxue Hu
- College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.,BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen, China
| | - Yan Li
- BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen, China
| | | | | | - Zijun Song
- The First Affiliated Hospital, Institute of Translational Medicine, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
| | - Junxia Min
- The First Affiliated Hospital, Institute of Translational Medicine, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
| | - Yi Zeng
- Center for Healthy Aging and Development Studies, National School of Development, Peking University, Beijing, China.,Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development and Geriatrics Division, Medical School of Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA
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Gunn S, Wainberg M, Song Z, Andersen S, Boudreau R, Feitosa MF, Tan Q, Montasser ME, O'Connell JR, Stitziel N, Price N, Perls T, Schork NJ, Sebastiani P. Distribution of 54 polygenic risk scores for common diseases in long lived individuals and their offspring. GeroScience 2022; 44:719-729. [PMID: 35119614 PMCID: PMC9135909 DOI: 10.1007/s11357-022-00518-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/27/2021] [Accepted: 01/15/2022] [Indexed: 12/01/2022] Open
Abstract
A surprising and well-replicated result in genetic studies of human longevity is that centenarians appear to carry disease-associated variants in numbers similar to the general population. With the proliferation of large genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in recent years, investigators have turned to polygenic scores to leverage GWAS results into a measure of genetic risk that can better predict the risk of disease than individual significant variants alone. We selected 54 polygenic risk scores (PRSs) developed for a variety of outcomes, and we calculated their values in individuals from the New England Centenarian Study (NECS, N = 4886) and the Long Life Family Study (LLFS, N = 4577). We compared the distribution of these PRSs among exceptionally long-lived individuals (ELLI), their offspring, and controls, and we also examined their predictive values, using t-tests and regression models adjusting for sex and principal components reflecting the ancestral background of the individuals (PCs). In our analyses, we controlled for multiple testing using a Bonferroni-adjusted threshold for 54 traits. We found that only 4 of the 54 PRSs differed between ELLIs and controls in both cohorts. ELLIs had significantly lower mean PRSs for Alzheimer's disease (AD) and coronary artery disease (CAD) than controls, suggesting a genetic predisposition to extreme longevity may be mediated by reduced susceptibility to these traits. ELLIs also had significantly higher mean PRSs for improved cognitive function and parental extreme longevity. In addition, the PRS for AD was associated with a higher risk of dementia among controls but not ELLIs (p = 0.003, 0.3 in NECS, p = 0.03, 0.9 in LLFS, respectively). ELLIs have a similar burden of genetic disease risk as the general population for most traits but have a significantly lower genetic risk of AD and CAD. The lack of association between AD PRS and dementia among ELLIs suggests that the genetic risk for AD that they do have is somehow counteracted by protective genetic or environmental factors.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sophia Gunn
- Department of Biostatistics, Boston University, Crosstown Building, 801 Massachusetts Avenue 3rd Floor, Boston, MA, 02118, USA.
| | - Michael Wainberg
- Institute for Systems Biology, 401 Terry Avenue North, Seattle, WA, 98109-5263, USA
| | - Zeyuan Song
- Department of Biostatistics, Boston University, Crosstown Building, 801 Massachusetts Avenue 3rd Floor, Boston, MA, 02118, USA
| | - Stacy Andersen
- Department of Medicine, Boston University, Crosstown Building, 801 Massachusetts Avenue 3rd Floor, Boston, MA, 02118, USA
| | - Robert Boudreau
- University of Pittsburgh, 127 N. Bellefield Avenue Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, 15260, USA
| | - Mary F Feitosa
- Department of Genetics, Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, 660 S. Euclid Ave, St. Louis, MO, 63110-1010, USA
| | - Qihua Tan
- University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, Odense M, Denmark
| | - May E Montasser
- Department of Medicine, Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Nutrition and Program for Personalized and Genomic Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Maryland, 620 W Lexington St, BaltimoreBaltimore, MD, 21201, USA
| | - Jeffrey R O'Connell
- Department of Medicine, Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Nutrition and Program for Personalized and Genomic Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Maryland, 620 W Lexington St, BaltimoreBaltimore, MD, 21201, USA
| | - Nathan Stitziel
- Department of Genetics, Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, 660 S. Euclid Ave, St. Louis, MO, 63110-1010, USA
| | - Nathan Price
- Institute for Systems Biology, 401 Terry Avenue North, Seattle, WA, 98109-5263, USA
| | - Thomas Perls
- Department of Medicine, Boston University, Crosstown Building, 801 Massachusetts Avenue 3rd Floor, Boston, MA, 02118, USA
| | | | - Paola Sebastiani
- Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies, Tufts Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA
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Kraushaar LE, Bauer P. Dismantling Anti-Ageing Medicine: Why Age-Relatedness of Cardiovascular Disease is Proof of Robustness Rather Than of Ageing-Associated Vulnerability. Heart Lung Circ 2021; 30:1702-1709. [PMID: 34244067 DOI: 10.1016/j.hlc.2021.05.105] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/30/2021] [Revised: 04/23/2021] [Accepted: 05/18/2021] [Indexed: 12/29/2022]
Abstract
Ageing is perceived to be the common culprit behind the most prevalent noncommunicable chronic diseases (NCD) such as cardiovascular disease (CVD). Treating ageing as a means to prevent its downstream pathologies has become the logical extension of this idea, and the defining criterion of anti-ageing medicine (evidence-based early detection, prevention, and treatment of age-related diseases). Challenging the underlying rationale, we here argue that the disease's late-in-life occurrence is proof of a genetically conserved robustness that helps us resist disease long enough for it to masquerade as a consequence of living long rather than of living wrong. Robustness is an acknowledged hallmark phenomenon of all complex systems (while there exists no universally adopted definition, a hallmark of complex systems is that they consist of many networked components whose interactions may give rise to system behaviors which cannot be derived or predicted from a reductionist knowledge of the interacting parts, even if this knowledge is complete) and a key concept in the complexity sciences (a relatively new branch of science that attempts to find and understand the common mechanisms and patterns shared by all complex systems). To reconceptualise the age-relatedness of chronic diseases in this sense has important implications for medical research and practice. The goal of our essay is to open a discussion that may enhance the overall understanding of robustness and prevent a misguided redirection of funding away from established disease specific research and towards anti-ageing medicine. This essay is timely, as the forthcoming 11th version of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) will be the first to recognise ageing as a condition, thereby legitimising anti-ageing medical research. On a more pragmatic note, and for the benefit of people alive today, we propose a practical strategy to remedy the mismatch between heritable robustness and the lifestyle challenges that gradually overwhelm it.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lutz E Kraushaar
- Adiphea Alliance for Disease Prevention & Healthy Aging GmbH, Werbach, Germany.
| | - Pascal Bauer
- Department of Cardiology and Angiology, Justus- Liebig University Giessen, Geissen, Germany
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Perls TT. Cognitive Trajectories and Resilience in Centenarians-Findings From the 100-Plus Study. JAMA Netw Open 2021; 4:e2032538. [PMID: 33449091 DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.32538] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Thomas T Perls
- New England Centenarian Study, Boston University School of Medicine
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