The epigenetic landscape of age-related diseases: the geroscience perspective

In this review, we summarize current knowledge regarding the epigenetics of age-related diseases, focusing on those studies that have described DNA methylation landscape in cardio-vascular diseases, musculoskeletal function and frailty. We stress the importance of adopting the conceptual framework o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Biogerontology (Dordrecht) 2017-08, Vol.18 (4), p.549-559
Main Authors: Gensous, Noémie, Bacalini, Maria Giulia, Pirazzini, Chiara, Marasco, Elena, Giuliani, Cristina, Ravaioli, Francesco, Mengozzi, Giacomo, Bertarelli, Claudia, Palmas, Maria Giustina, Franceschi, Claudio, Garagnani, Paolo
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Age
Age Factors
Aging
Aging - genetics
Biological Clocks - genetics
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Biomedical Research - methods
Cardiovascular Diseases - diagnosis
Cardiovascular Diseases - genetics
Cardiovascular Diseases - mortality
Cell Biology
Centenarians
Deoxyribonucleic acid
Developmental Biology
DNA
DNA Methylation
Epigenesis, Genetic
Epigenetics
Frailty - diagnosis
Frailty - genetics
Frailty - mortality
Genetic Predisposition to Disease
Genomes
Geriatrics - methods
Geriatrics/Gerontology
Humans
Life Sciences
Medicin och hälsovetenskap
Musculoskeletal Diseases - diagnosis
Musculoskeletal Diseases - genetics
Musculoskeletal Diseases - mortality
Phenotype
Research Article
Risk Factors
Stochasticity
Vascular diseases
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Summary:In this review, we summarize current knowledge regarding the epigenetics of age-related diseases, focusing on those studies that have described DNA methylation landscape in cardio-vascular diseases, musculoskeletal function and frailty. We stress the importance of adopting the conceptual framework of “geroscience”, which starts from the observation that advanced age is the major risk factor for several of these pathologies and aims at identifying the mechanistic links between aging and age-related diseases. DNA methylation undergoes a profound remodeling during aging, which includes global hypomethylation of the genome, hypermethylation at specific loci and an increase in inter-individual variation and in stochastic changes of DNA methylation values. These epigenetic modifications can be an important contributor to the development of age-related diseases, but our understanding on the complex relationship between the epigenetic signatures of aging and age-related disease is still poor. The most relevant results in this field come from the use of the so called “epigenetics clocks” in cohorts of subjects affected by age-related diseases. We report these studies in final section of this review.
ISSN:1389-5729
1573-6768
1573-6768
DOI:10.1007/s10522-017-9695-7