Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Sep:157:105428.
doi: 10.1016/j.nbd.2021.105428. Epub 2021 Jun 19.

The association of epigenetic clocks in brain tissue with brain pathologies and common aging phenotypes

Affiliations

The association of epigenetic clocks in brain tissue with brain pathologies and common aging phenotypes

Francine Grodstein et al. Neurobiol Dis. 2021 Sep.

Abstract

Epigenetic clocks are calculated by combining DNA methylation states across select CpG sites to estimate biologic age, and have been noted as the most successful markers of biologic aging to date. Yet, limited research has considered epigenetic clocks calculated in brain tissue. We used DNA methylation states in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex specimens from 721 older participants of the Religious Orders Study and Rush Memory and Aging Project, to calculate DNA methylation age using four established epigenetic clocks: Hannum, Horvath, PhenoAge, GrimAge, and a new Cortical clock. The four established clocks were trained in blood samples (Hannum, PhenoAge, GrimAge) or using 51 human tissue and cell types (Horvath); the recent Cortical clock is the first trained in postmortem cortical tissue. Participants were recruited beginning in 1994 (Religious Orders Study) and 1997 (Memory and Aging Project), and followed annually with questionnaires and clinical evaluations; brain specimens were obtained for 80-90% of participants. Mean age at death was 88.0 (SD 6.7) years. We used linear regression, logistic regression, and linear mixed models, to examine relations of epigenetic clock ages to neuropathologic and clinical aging phenotypes, controlling for chronologic age, sex, education, and depressive symptomatology. Hannum, Horvath, PhenoAge and Cortical clock ages were related to pathologic diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD), as well as to Aβ load (a hallmark pathology of Alzheimer's disease). However, associations were substantially stronger for the Cortical than other clocks; for example, each standard deviation (SD) increase in Hannum, Horvath, and PhenoAge clock age was related to approximately 30% greater likelihood of pathologic AD (all p < 0.05), while each SD increase in Cortical age was related to 90% greater likelihood of pathologic AD (odds ratio = 1.91, 95% confidence interval 1.38, 2.62). Moreover, Cortical age was significantly related to other AD pathology (eg, mean tau tangle density, p = 0.003), and to odds of neocortical Lewy body pathology (for each SD increase in Cortical age, odds ratio = 2.00, 95% confidence 1.27, 3.17), although no clocks were related to cerebrovascular neuropathology. Cortical age was the only epigenetic clock significantly associated with the clinical phenotypes examined, from dementia to cognitive decline (5 specific cognitive systems, and a global cognitive measure averaging 17 tasks) to Parkinsonian signs. Overall, our findings provide evidence of the critical necessity for bespoke clocks of brain aging for advancing research to understand, and eventually prevent, neurodegenerative diseases of aging.

Keywords: Aging; Dementia; Epidemiology; Epigenetics; Neuropathology.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests:

The authors have no competing interests to declare.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Relations of Epigenetic Clocks in Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex to Diagnosis of Pathologic Alzheimer’s Disease1 1 Odds ratios adjusted for age at death, sex, education, depressive symptoms at baseline. N=721 for Hannum, Horvath, PhenoAge, and GrimAge clocks; for Cortical clock, we excluded 88 specimens which had been in the original training set for this clock. Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Relations of Epigenetic Clocks in Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex to Global Alzheimer’s Disease Pathologies, and Amyloid and Tau Tangle Density1 1 Mean differences adjusted for age at death, sex, education, depressive symptoms at baseline. N=721 for Hannum, Horvath, PhenoAge, GrimAge clocks; for Cortical clock, we excluded 88 specimens which had been in the original training set for this clock.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Odds Ratios of Neurodegenerative (Panel A), Cerebral Vessel (Panel B), and Cerebrovascular Pathology (Panel C) per Standard Deviation Increment in Epigenetic Clock Age in the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex1 1Odds ratios adjusted for age at death, sex, education, depressive symptoms at baseline. LATE-NC, limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy – neurologic change. N=721, except n=674 for LATE-NC, n=716 for cerebral atherosclerosis, n=714 for arteriolosclerosis, n=700 for cerebral amyloid angiopathy. For Cortical clock we further excluded 88 specimens which had been in the original training set for this clock.

Similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Jylhava J, Pedersen NL, Hagg S. Biological Age Predictors. EBioMedicine 2017;21, 29–36. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Hannum G, Guinney J, Zhao L, et al.Genome-wide methylation profiles reveal quantitative views of aging rates. Molecular Cell 2013;49:359–367. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Horvath S DNA methylation age of human tissues and cell types. Genome Biol 2013;14, R115. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Levine ME, Lu AT, Quach A. et al.An epigenetic biomarker of aging for lifespan and healthspan. Aging (Albany NY) 2018;10: 573–591. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Lu AT, Quach A, Wilson JG, Reiner AP, Aviv A, Raj K, Hou L, Baccarelli AA, Li Y, Stewart JD, Whitsel EA, Assimes TL, Ferrucci L, Horvath S. DNA methylation GrimAge strongly predicts lifespan and healthspan. Aging (Albany NY). 2019January21;11(2):303–327. doi: 10.18632/aging.101684. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms