BioMed Central, BMC Genomics, 1(17), 2016
DOI: 10.1186/s12864-016-2421-z
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BioMed Central open access ; Background Chronological aging-associated changes in the human DNA methylome have been studied by multiple epigenome-wide association studies (EWASs). Certain CpG sites have been identified as aging-associated in multiple studies, and the majority of the sites identified in various studies show common features regarding location and direction of the methylation change. However, as a whole, the sets of aging-associated CpGs identified in different studies, even with similar tissues and age ranges, show only limited overlap. In this study, we further explore and characterize CpG sites that show close relationship between their DNA methylation level and chronological age during adulthood and which bear the relationship regardless of blood cell type heterogeneity. Results In this study, with a multivariable regression model adjusted for cell type heterogeneity, we identified 1202 aging-associated CpG sites (a-CpGs, FDR