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DNA methylation status in a variety of tissues can accurately reveal the age of an animal, but previously discovered epigenetic clocks often aren’t evolutionarily conserved. In a study published today (February 14) in Genome Research, researchers describe a new clock, composed of methylation sites in ribosomal DNA. This timekeeper is found in species as diverse as mice, dogs, and humans, and reveals both chronological and biological age.
“It’s really interesting that the same kinds of methylation changes that have been observed over age in the main genome of mammals have also been found in . . . ribosomal DNA,” says Trey Ideker, a biologist at the University of California, San Diego, who did not participate in the study. “These ribosomal DNA changes are simply not measured by the methylation profiling everyone else is doing. They’ve filled in a blind spot.”
The nucleolus is the part of a ...
