| 1. |
- Wang, Yunzhang, et al.
(författare)
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Comprehensive longitudinal study of epigenetic mutations in aging
- 2019
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Ingår i: Clinical Epigenetics. - : BioMed Central. - 1868-7083 .- 1868-7075. ; 11
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: The role of DNA methylation in aging has been widely studied. However, epigenetic mutations, here defined as aberrant methylation levels compared to the distribution in a population, are less understood. Hence, we investigated longitudinal accumulation of epigenetic mutations, using 994 blood samples collected at up to five time points from 375 individuals in old ages.Results: We verified earlier cross-sectional evidence on the increase of epigenetic mutations with age, and identified important contributing factors including sex, CD19+ B cells, genetic background, cancer diagnosis, and technical artifacts. We further classified epigenetic mutations into High/Low Methylation Outliers (HMO/LMO) according to their changes in methylation, and specifically studied methylation sites (CpGs) that were prone to mutate (frequently mutated CpGs). We validated four epigenetically mutated CpGs using pyrosequencing in 93 samples. Furthermore, by using twins, we concluded that the age-related accumulation of epigenetic mutations was not related to genetic factors, hence driven by stochastic or environmental effects.Conclusions: Here we conducted a comprehensive study of epigenetic mutation and highlighted its important role in aging process and cancer development.
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| 2. |
- Zhan, Y., et al.
(författare)
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Exploring the Causal Pathway from Telomere Length to Coronary Heart Disease : A Network Mendelian Randomization Study
- 2017
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Ingår i: Circulation Research. - : Lippincott Williams and Wilkins. - 0009-7330 .- 1524-4571. ; 121:3, s. 214-219
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Rationale: Observational studies have found shorter leukocyte telomere length (TL) to be a risk factor for coronary heart disease (CHD), and recently the association was suggested to be causal. However, the relationship between TL and common metabolic risk factors for CHD is not well understood. Whether these risk factors could explain pathways from TL to CHD warrants further attention.Objective: To examine whether metabolic risk factors for CHD mediate the causal pathway from short TL to increased risk of CHD using a network Mendelian randomization design.Methods and Results: Summary statistics from several genome-wide association studies were used in a 2-sample Mendelian randomization study design. Network Mendelian randomization analysis - an approach using genetic variants as the instrumental variables for both the exposure and mediator to infer causality - was performed to examine the causal association between telomeres and CHD and metabolic risk factors. Summary statistics from the ENGAGE Telomere Consortium were used (n=37 684) as a TL genetic instrument, CARDIoGRAMplusC4D Consortium data were used (case=22 233 and control=64 762) for CHD, and other consortia data were used for metabolic traits (fasting insulin, triglyceride, total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, fasting glucose, diabetes mellitus, glycohemoglobin, body mass index, waist circumference, and waist:hip ratio). One-unit increase of genetically determined TL was associated with -0.07 (95% confidence interval, -0.01 to -0.12; P=0.01) lower log-transformed fasting insulin (pmol/L) and 21% lower odds (95% confidence interval, 3-35; P=0.02) of CHD. Higher genetically determined log-transformed fasting insulin level was associated with higher CHD risk (odds ratio, 1.86; 95% confidence interval, 1.01-3.41; P=0.04).Conclusions: Overall, our findings support a role of insulin as a mediator on the causal pathway from shorter telomeres to CHD pathogenesis.
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| 3. |
- Bai, Ge, et al.
(författare)
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Frailty and the risk of dementia : is the association explained by shared environmental and genetic factors?
- 2021
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Ingår i: BMC Medicine. - : BioMed Central. - 1741-7015. ; 19:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background Frailty has been identified as a risk factor for cognitive impairment and dementia. However, it is not known whether familial factors, such as genetics and shared environmental factors, underlie this association. We analyzed the association between frailty and the risk of dementia in a large twin cohort and examined the role of familial factors in the association. Methods The Rockwood frailty index (FI) based on 44 health deficits was used to assess frailty. The population-level association between FI and the risk of all-cause dementia was analyzed in 41,550 participants of the Screening Across the Lifespan Twin (SALT) study (full sample, aged 41-97 years at baseline), using Cox and competing risk models. A subsample of 10,487 SALT participants aged 65 and older who received a cognitive assessment (cognitive sample) was used in a sensitivity analysis to assess the effect of baseline cognitive level on the FI-dementia association. To analyze the influence of familial effects on the FI-dementia association, a within-pair analysis was performed. The within-pair model was also used to assess whether the risk conferred by frailty varies by age at FI assessment. Results A total of 3183 individuals were diagnosed with dementia during the 19-year follow-up. A 10% increase in FI was associated with an increased risk of dementia (hazard ratio [HR] 1.17 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.07, 1.18)) in the full sample adjusted for age, sex, education, and tobacco use. A significant association was likewise found in the cognitive sample, with an HR of 1.13 (95% CI 1.09, 1.20), adjusted for age, sex, and cognitive level at baseline. The associations were not attenuated when adjusted for APOE e4 carrier status or considering the competing risk of death. After adjusting for familial effects, we found no evidence for statistically significant attenuation of the effect. The risk conferred by higher FI on dementia was constant after age 50 until very old age. Conclusions A higher level of frailty predicts the risk of dementia and the association appears independent of familial factors. Targeting frailty might thus contribute to preventing or delaying dementia.
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| 4. |
- Bai, Ge, et al.
(författare)
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Frailty trajectories in three longitudinal studies of aging : Is the level or the rate of change more predictive of mortality?
- 2021
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Ingår i: Age and Ageing. - : Oxford University Press. - 0002-0729 .- 1468-2834. ; 50:6, s. 2174-2182
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND: frailty shows an upward trajectory with age, and higher levels increase the risk of mortality. However, it is less known whether the shape of frailty trajectories differs by age at death or whether the rate of change in frailty is associated with mortality.OBJECTIVES: to assess population frailty trajectories by age at death and to analyse whether the current level of the frailty index (FI) i.e. the most recent measurement or the person-specific rate of change is more predictive of mortality.METHODS: 3,689 individuals from three population-based cohorts with up to 15 repeated measurements of the Rockwood frailty index were analysed. The FI trajectories were assessed by stratifying the sample into four age-at-death groups: <70, 70-80, 80-90 and >90 years. Generalised survival models were used in the survival analysis.RESULTS: the FI trajectories by age at death showed that those who died at <70 years had a steadily increasing trajectory throughout the 40 years before death, whereas those who died at the oldest ages only accrued deficits from age ~75 onwards. Higher level of FI was independently associated with increased risk of mortality (hazard ratio 1.68, 95% confidence interval 1.47-1.91), whereas the rate of change was no longer significant after accounting for the current FI level. The effect of the FI level did not weaken with time elapsed since the last measurement.CONCLUSIONS: Frailty trajectories differ as a function of age-at-death category. The current level of FI is a stronger marker for risk stratification than the rate of change.
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| 5. |
- Ericsson, Malin, et al.
(författare)
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Educational Influences on Late-Life Health : Genetic Propensity and Attained Education
- 2024
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Ingår i: The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences. - 1079-5014 .- 1758-5368. ; 79:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Objectives: The educational gradient in late-life health is well established. Despite this, there are still ambiguities concerning the role of underlying confounding by genetic influences and gene-environment (GE) interplay. Here, we investigate the role of educational factors (attained and genetic propensities) on health and mortality in late life using genetic propensity for educational attainment (as measured by a genome-wide polygenic score, PGSEdu) and attained education.Methods: By utilizing genetically informative twin data from the Swedish Twin Registry (n = 14,570), we investigated influences of the educational measures, familial confounding as well as the possible presence of passive GE correlation on both objective and subjective indicators of late-life health, that is, the Frailty Index, Multimorbidity, Self-rated health, cardiovascular disease, and all-cause mortality.Results: Using between-within models to adjust for shared familial factors, we found that the relationship between educational level and health and mortality later in life persisted despite controlling for familial confounding. PGSEdu and attained education both uniquely predicted late-life health and mortality, even when mutually adjusted. Between-within models of PGSEdu on the health outcomes in dizygotic twins showed weak evidence for passive GE correlation (prGE) in the education-health relationship.Discussion: Both genetic propensity to education and attained education are (partly) independently associated with health in late life. These results lend further support for a causal education-health relationship but also raise the importance of genetic contributions and GE interplay.
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| 6. |
- Gatz, Margaret, et al.
(författare)
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Dementia : Genes, environments, interactions
- 2014
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Ingår i: Behavior genetics of cognition across the lifespan. - New York : Springer. - 9781461474470 - 9781461474463 ; , s. 201-231
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Dementia is an increasingly prevalent disorder as the world population ages, with Alzheimer disease the most common cause. Twin studies find concordance to be substantially higher among monozygotic as compared with dizygotic twin pairs. While a few genes have been identified that are responsible for early-onset Alzheimer disease, they account for well under 5 % of all cases. Among susceptibility genes for Alzheimer disease identified by association studies, population attributable fraction for the most prominent of these—apolipoprotein E—is estimated to be about 25 %, whereas other genes at best predict another 20 %. There are few strong environmental risk or protective factors, with vascular risks the best established, although with mechanisms still not fully understood. It seems likely that clusters of risk alleles, interactions between risk alleles and environmental exposures, and epigenetic mechanisms play a role in explaining Alzheimer disease, with different combinations of influences culminating in the observed pathophysiology. In particular, environmental exposures early in life could lead to deleterious changes in gene expression in late life.
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| 7. |
- Karlsson, Ida K., et al.
(författare)
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Adiposity and the risk of dementia : mediating effects from inflammation and lipid levels
- 2022
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Ingår i: European Journal of Epidemiology. - : Springer Nature Switzerland AG.. - 0393-2990 .- 1573-7284. ; 37:12, s. 1261-1271
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- While midlife adiposity is a risk factor for dementia, adiposity in late-life appears to be associated with lower risk. What drives the associations is poorly understood, especially the inverse association in late-life. Using results from genome-wide association studies, we identified inflammation and lipid metabolism as biological pathways involved in both adiposity and dementia. To test if these factors mediate the effect of midlife and/or late-life adiposity on dementia, we then used cohort data from the Swedish Twin Registry, with measures of adiposity and potential mediators taken in midlife (age 40–64, n = 5999) or late-life (age 65–90, n = 7257). Associations between body-mass index (BMI), waist-hip ratio (WHR), C-reactive protein (CRP), lipid levels, and dementia were tested in survival and mediation analyses. Age was used as the underlying time scale, and sex and education included as covariates in all models. Fasting status was included as a covariate in models of lipids. One standard deviation (SD) higher WHR in midlife was associated with 25% (95% CI 2–52%) higher dementia risk, with slight attenuation when adjusting for BMI. No evidence of mediation through CRP or lipid levels was present. After age 65, one SD higher BMI, but not WHR, was associated with 8% (95% CI 1–14%) lower dementia risk. The association was partly mediated by higher CRP, and suppressed when high-density lipoprotein levels were low. In conclusion, the negative effects of midlife adiposity on dementia risk were driven directly by factors associated with body fat distribution, with no evidence of mediation through inflammation or lipid levels. There was an inverse association between late-life adiposity and dementia risk, especially where the body’s inflammatory response and lipid homeostasis is intact.
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| 8. |
- Karlsson, Ida K., et al.
(författare)
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Apolipoprotein E DNA methylation and late-life disease
- 2018
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Ingår i: International Journal of Epidemiology. - : Oxford University Press. - 0300-5771 .- 1464-3685. ; 47:3, s. 899-907
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: This study aims to investigate if DNA methylation of the apolipoprotein E (APOE) locus affects the risks of dementia, Alzheimers disease (AD) or cardiovascular disease (CVD).Methods: DNA methylation across the APOE gene has previously been categorized into three distinct regions: a hypermethylated region in the promoter, a hypomethylated region in the first two introns and exons and a hypermethylated region in the 3'exon that also harbours the APOE epsilon 2 and epsilon 4 alleles. DNA methylation levels in leukocytes were measured using the Illumina 450K array in 447 Swedish twins (mean age 78.1 years). We used logistic regression to investigate whether methylation levels in those regions affect the odds of disease.Results: We found that methylation levels in the promoter region were associated with dementia and AD after adjusting for sex, age at blood draw, education, smoking and relatedness among twins [odds ratio (OR) 1.32 per standard deviation increase in methylation levels, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.08-1.62 for dementia; OR 1.38, 95% CI 1.07-1.78 for AD). We did not detect any difference in methylation levels between CVD cases and controls. Results were similar when comparing within discordant twin pairs, and did not differ as a function of APOE genotype.Conclusions: We found that higher DNA methylation levels in the promoter region of APOE increase the odds of dementia and AD, but not CVD. The effect was independent of APOE genotype, indicating that allelic variation and methylation variation in APOE may act independently to increase the risk of dementia.
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| 9. |
- Karlsson, Ida K., et al.
(författare)
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Apolipoprotein E ε4 genotype and the temporal relationship between depression and dementia
- 2015
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Ingår i: Neurobiology of Aging. - : Elsevier. - 0197-4580 .- 1558-1497. ; 36:4, s. 1751-1756
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- To investigate how apolipoprotein E (. APOE) affects the temporal relationship between depression and dementia, we conducted a nested case-control study with longitudinal depression and dementia evaluations from several population studies by using 804 dementia cases and 1600 matched controls, totaling 1519 unique individuals. Depression within 10 years of onset of dementia was strongly associated with dementia diagnosis regardless of APOE status (incidence rate ratio [IRR] 5.25, 95% confidence interval [95% CI] 3.32-8.31 for ε4 carriers, IRR 4.40, 95%CI 3.23-5.99 for noncarriers). However, we found a significant interaction between depression more than 10 years before the onset of dementia and APOE (. p= 0.01), with depression more distal to dementia being a risk factor only in ε4 carriers (IRR 3.39, 95% CI 1.69-6.78 for carriers, IRR 1.01, 95% CI 0.60-1.70 for noncarriers). Thus, depression with onset close in time to dementia onset is associated with disease irrespective of APOE genotype, whereas depression more distal to dementia onset is a risk factor only in ε4-carriers. This is the first study to show the interaction between APOE and depression to be dependent on timing of depression onset.
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| 10. |
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