RECENT UPDATES ON THE EPIGENETIC CLOCK

RECENT UPDATES ON THE EPIGENETIC CLOCK(definition) S. Horvath, David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA, Los Angeles, California The DNA methylation based biomarker of aging known as the “epigenetic clock” can be used to measure the DNA methylation (DNAm) age of any human tissue, cell type, or fluid that contains DNA (except sperm). DNAm age has the following properties: first, it is close to zero for pluripotent stem cells; second, it correlates with cell passage number; third, it gives rise to a highly heritable measure of age acceleration. Recent results suggest that DNAm age captures aspects of biological age. DNAm age of blood has been shown to predict all-cause mortality. Markers of physical and mental fitness are also associated with the epigenetic clock. I will present recent applications ranging from GWAS studies of the epigenetic clock to age related phenotypes such as progeria, Down syndrome, HIV, and centenarians. These results suggest that we are close to achieving the development of an accurate measure of tissue age.