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Accelerated epigenetic aging in Down syndrome

Steve Horvath¹, Paolo Garagnani, Maria Giulia Bacalini

¹Human Genetics, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA; Biostatistics, Fielding School of Public Health, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA.

|February 14, 2015

Abstract:

Down Syndrome (DS) entails an increased risk of many chronic diseases that are typically associated with older age. The clinical manifestations of accelerated aging suggest that trisomy 21 increases the biological age of tissues, but molecular evidence for this hypothesis has been sparse. Here, we utilize a quantitative molecular marker of aging (known as the epigenetic clock) to demonstrate that trisomy 21 significantly increases the age of blood and brain tissue (on average by 6.6 years, P = 7.0 × 10(-14)).

Keywords:

DNA methylation Down syndrome biomarker of aging epigenetics

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