METHOD TO ESTIMATE AGE OF INDIVIDUAL BASED ON EPIGENETIC MARKERS IN BIOLOGICAL SAMPLE

摘要

The invention provides methods and materials that use observation of DNA characteristics to obtain information relating to the age of individuals. The instant disclosure identifies 88 sites in or near 80 genes for which the degree of cytosine methylation in epithelial and/or white blood cells is significantly correlated with age. In illustrative embodiments of the invention, cytosine methylation patterns the promoters of the EDARADD, TOMILI, and NPTX2 genes are used to predict the age of an individual with a high degree of accuracy.

主权项

1. A method of obtaining information useful to determine an age of an individual, the method comprising the steps of:
(a) obtaining a biological sample derived from an individual comprising genomic DNA from white blood cells or epithelial cells; and (b) observing a pattern of cytosine methylation of at least one genomic DNA sequence selected from the group consisting of Edaradd (SEQ ID NO: 1), TomL1 (SEQ ID NO: 2), NPTX2 (SEQ ID NO: 3) and ELN (SEQ ID NO: 4);so that information useful to determine the age of the individual is obtained.