Epigenetic Clocks Reveal a Rejuvenation Event During Embryogenesis Followed by Aging

Overview

Journal Sci Adv

Specialties Biology
Science

Date 2021 Jun 26

PMID 34172448

Citations 46

Authors

Csaba Kerepesi

Bohan Zhang

Sang-Goo Lee

Alexandre Trapp

Vadim N Gladyshev

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The notion that the germ line does not age goes back to the 19th-century ideas of August Weismann. However, being metabolically active, the germ line accumulates damage and other changes over time, i.e., it ages. For new life to begin in the same young state, the germ line must be rejuvenated in the offspring. Here, we developed a multi-tissue epigenetic clock and applied it, together with other aging clocks, to track changes in biological age during mouse and human prenatal development. This analysis revealed a significant decrease in biological age, i.e., rejuvenation, during early stages of embryogenesis, followed by an increase in later stages. We further found that pluripotent stem cells do not age even after extensive passaging and that the examined epigenetic age dynamics is conserved across species. Overall, this study uncovers a natural rejuvenation event during embryogenesis and suggests that the minimal biological age (ground zero) marks the beginning of organismal aging.

Citing Articles

What makes biological age epigenetic clocks tick.

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Glucocorticoid exposure-induced alterations in epigenetic age from human preterm infants and human lung fibroblasts and hippocampal neuronal cells.

Wu X, Lu C, Deng Z, Xiao W, Ni H, Zhao C Clin Epigenetics. 2025; 17(1):29.

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DNA methylation-based age prediction and sex-specific epigenetic aging in a lizard with female-biased longevity.

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Modeling the consequences of age-linked rDNA hypermethylation with dCas9-directed DNA methylation in human cells.

Blokhina Y, Buchwalter A PLoS One. 2024; 19(12):e0310626.

PMID: 39666677 PMC: 11637357. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0310626.

Epigenetic rejuvenation: a journey backwards towards an epigenomic ground state.

Olova N Epigenomics. 2024; 17(1):1-3.

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