1. An epigenetic clock analysis of race/ethnicity, sex, and coronary heart disease
- Author
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Brian H. Chen, Michael S. Kobor, Devin Absher, Morgan E. Levine, Michael Gurven, Lluis Quintana-Murci, Wei Chen, Maud Fagny, Beate Ritz, Hillard Kaplan, Hooman Allayee, Benjamin C. Trumble, Steve Horvath, Philip S. Tsao, Kerstin L. Edlefsen, Shengxu Li, Tammy M. Rickabaugh, Alexander P. Reiner, Ake T. Lu, Beth D. Jamieson, Themistocles L. Assimes, Dianjianyi Sun, University of California [Los Angeles] (UCLA), University of California (UC), University of California [Santa Barbara] (UC Santa Barbara), The University of New Mexico [Albuquerque], University of Southern California (USC), National Institute on Aging [Bethesda, USA] (NIA), National Institutes of Health [Bethesda] (NIH), Tulane University, Génétique Evolutive Humaine - Human Evolutionary Genetics, Institut Pasteur [Paris] (IP)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Dana-Farber Cancer Institute [Boston], Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, University of British Columbia (UBC), Stanford School of Medicine [Stanford], Stanford Medicine, Stanford University-Stanford University, University of Washington [Seattle], HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology [Huntsville, AL], and This study was supported by NIH/NHLBI 60442456 BAA23 (Assimes, Absher, Horvath), National Institutes of Health NIH/NIA 1U34AG051425-01 (Horvath). The WHI program is funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services through contracts HHSN268201100046C, HHSN268201100001C, HHSN268201100002C, HHSN268201100003C, HHSN268201100004C, and HHSN271201100004C. The PEG data were supported by NIEHS RO1ES10544 (Ritz) and NIEHS R21 ES024356 (Horvath, Ritz). Gurven and Trumble were funded by NIH/NIA R01AG024119 and R56AG02411. The Religious Order study and Rush Memory and Aging Project (brain dataset 6) were funded by P30AG10161, R01AG17917, RF1AG15819, and R01AG36042.
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Male ,0301 basic medicine ,Aging ,Epigenetic clock ,Ethnic group ,Coronary Disease ,Disease ,Cardiovascular ,Epigenesis, Genetic ,MESH: DNA Methylation ,MESH: Risk Factors ,Risk Factors ,MESH: Aging ,MESH: Epigenesis, Genetic ,MESH: Hispanic or Latino ,MESH: Aged ,African Americans ,Genetics ,Sex Characteristics ,Hispanic paradox ,DNA methylation ,Continental Population Groups ,Mortality rate ,Incidence (epidemiology) ,Hispanic or Latino ,Biological Sciences ,3. Good health ,Black/white mortality cross-over ,Coronary heart disease ,Heart Disease ,Female ,Hispanic Americans ,MESH: Sex Characteristics ,Sex characteristics ,Race ,Bioinformatics ,MESH: Whites ,European Continental Ancestry Group ,Biology ,White People ,03 medical and health sciences ,Genetic ,Clinical Research ,[SDV.BBM.GTP]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Biochemistry, Molecular Biology/Genomics [q-bio.GN] ,Information and Computing Sciences ,MESH: United States ,Humans ,Epigenetics ,Heart Disease - Coronary Heart Disease ,Aged ,MESH: Humans ,Prevention ,Research ,Racial Groups ,Gender ,MESH: Male ,United States ,Black or African American ,MESH: Racial Groups ,Good Health and Well Being ,030104 developmental biology ,MESH: African Americans ,Life expectancy ,MESH: Coronary Disease ,MESH: Female ,Environmental Sciences ,Epigenesis ,Demography - Abstract
Background Epigenetic biomarkers of aging (the “epigenetic clock”) have the potential to address puzzling findings surrounding mortality rates and incidence of cardio-metabolic disease such as: (1) women consistently exhibiting lower mortality than men despite having higher levels of morbidity; (2) racial/ethnic groups having different mortality rates even after adjusting for socioeconomic differences; (3) the black/white mortality cross-over effect in late adulthood; and (4) Hispanics in the United States having a longer life expectancy than Caucasians despite having a higher burden of traditional cardio-metabolic risk factors. Results We analyzed blood, saliva, and brain samples from seven different racial/ethnic groups. We assessed the intrinsic epigenetic age acceleration of blood (independent of blood cell counts) and the extrinsic epigenetic aging rates of blood (dependent on blood cell counts and tracks the age of the immune system). In blood, Hispanics and Tsimane Amerindians have lower intrinsic but higher extrinsic epigenetic aging rates than Caucasians. African-Americans have lower extrinsic epigenetic aging rates than Caucasians and Hispanics but no differences were found for the intrinsic measure. Men have higher epigenetic aging rates than women in blood, saliva, and brain tissue. Conclusions Epigenetic aging rates are significantly associated with sex, race/ethnicity, and to a lesser extent with CHD risk factors, but not with incident CHD outcomes. These results may help elucidate lower than expected mortality rates observed in Hispanics, older African-Americans, and women. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13059-016-1030-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
- Published
- 2016