The Longevity Puzzle
31 Jan 2012
The secret to a long life; who doesn't want to know? Performing gene expression profiling on a group of nonagenarians (people in their 90s), their middle-aged offspring and the offspring's partners as controls, Willemijn Passtoors (Leiden University Medical Centre) and colleagues, among which NBIC faculty member Judith Boer (LUMC), succeeded in coming up with a new small piece of the puzzle. Using by now standard bioinformatics tools, such as Limma for single gene analysis and Globaltest for pathway analysis, the group found an 'ageing-signature' of 21 genes. Reduced expression of two of these appears to mark familial longevity already at middle age.
Passtoors WM, Boer JM, Goeman JJ, van den Akker EB, Deelen J, Zwaan BJ, Scarborough A, van der Breggen R, Vossen RH, Houwing-Duistermaat JJ, van Ommen GJ, Westendorp RG, van Heemst D, de Craen AJ, White AJ, Gunn DA, Beekman M, Slagboom PE
Transcriptional profiling of human familial longevity indicates a role for ASF1A and IL7R.
PLoS One. 2012;7(1):e27759
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