How lifespan associated genes modulate aging changes: lessons from analysis of longitudinal data.

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: The influence of genes on human lifespan is mediated by biological processes that characterize body's functioning. The age trajectories of these processes contain important information about mechanisms linking aging, health, and lifespan. The objective of this paper is to investigate regularities of aging changes in different groups of individuals, including individuals with different genetic background, as well as their connections with health and lifespan. DATA AND METHOD: To reach this objective we used longitudinal data on four physiological variables, information about health and lifespan collected in the Framingham Heart Study (FHS), data on longevity alleles detected in earlier study, as well as methods of statistical modeling. RESULTS: We found that phenotypes of exceptional longevity and health are linked to distinct types of changes in physiological indices during aging. We also found that components of aging changes differ in groups of individuals with different genetic background. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that factors responsible for exceptional longevity and health are not necessary the same, and that postponing aging changes is associated with extreme longevity. The genetic factors which increase lifespan are associated with physiological changes typical of healthy and long-living individuals, smaller mortality risks from cancer and CVD and better estimates of adaptive capacity in statistical modeling. This indicates that extreme longevity and health related traits are likely to be less heterogeneous phenotypes than lifespan, and studying these phenotypes separately from lifespan may provide additional information about mechanisms of human aging and its relation to chronic diseases and lifespan.

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Citation

Published Version (Please cite this version)

10.3389/fgene.2013.00003

Publication Info

Yashin, Anatoliy I, Konstantin G Arbeev, Deqing Wu, Liubov S Arbeeva, Alexander Kulminski, Igor Akushevich, Irina Culminskaya, Eric Stallard, et al. (2013). How lifespan associated genes modulate aging changes: lessons from analysis of longitudinal data. Front Genet, 4. p. 3. 10.3389/fgene.2013.00003 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/14839.

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Scholars@Duke

Yashin

Anatoli I. Yashin

Research Professor in the Social Science Research Institute
Arbeev

Konstantin Arbeev

Associate Research Professor in the Social Science Research Institute

Konstantin G. Arbeev received the M.S. degree in Applied Mathematics from Moscow State University (branch in Ulyanovsk, Russia) in 1995 and the Ph.D. degree in Mathematics and Physics (specialization in Theoretical Foundations of Mathematical Modeling, Numerical Methods and Programming) from Ulyanovsk State University (Russia) in 1999. He was a post-doctoral fellow in Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock (Germany) before moving to Duke University in 2004 to work as a Research Scientist and a Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Sociology and the Social Science Research Institute (SSRI).  He is currently an Associate Research Professor in SSRI. Dr. Arbeev's major research interests are related to three interconnected fields of biodemography, biostatistics and genetic epidemiology as pertains to research on aging. The focus of his research is on discovering genetic and non-genetic factors that can affect the process of aging and determine longevity and healthy lifespan. He is interested in both methodological advances in this research area as well as their practical applications to analyses of large-scale longitudinal studies with phenotypic, genetic and, recently, genomic information. Dr. Arbeev authored and co-authored more than 150 peer-reviewed publications in these areas.

Kulminski

Alexander Kulminski

Research Professor in the Social Science Research Institute
Akushevich

Igor Akushevich

Research Professor in the Social Science Research Institute
Kulminskaya

Irina Kulminskaya

Research Scientist, Senior
Ukraintseva

Svetlana Ukraintseva

Research Professor in the Social Science Research Institute

Dr. Ukraintseva studies causes of human aging and related decline in resilience, to identify genetic and other factors responsible for the increase in mortality risk with age eventually limiting longevity. She explores complex relationships, including trade-offs, between physiological aging-changes and risks of major diseases (with emphasis on Alzheimer’s and cancer), as well as survival, to find new genetic and other targets for anti-aging interventions and disease prevention. She also investigates possibilities of repurposing of existing vaccines and treatments for AD prevention and interventions into the aging. For this, Dr. Ukraintseva and her team use data from several large human studies containing rich genetic and phenotypic information (including longitudinal measurements) on thousands of individuals. Dr. Ukraintseva is a PI and Key Investigator on several NIH funded grants, and has more than 130 peer-reviewed publications, including in major journals such as Nature Reviews, Stroke, European Journal of Human Genetics, and some other.


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