The epigenetic marks can be used to calculate the biological age of a person

A group of researchers has discovered another marker of aging: they studied how behavior and work change

Monocytes are one of the most common types of immune cells as their owners’ bodies age.

For this purpose, a group of male volunteers was assembledfrom 27 to 64 years old.  The researchers obtained blood samples from them, extracted monocytes from them and comprehensively studied these cells. By analyzing the differences between them, biologists tracked not only changes in the concentrations of enzymes and other important biomolecules, but also how the number and location of so-called epigenetic marks changed.

Subsequent work showed that everythingchanges in the epigenetic structure of these DNA regions have been associated with two enzymes, MBD2 and MBD3. Before this, they were not correlated in any way with the aging process of the body.

We know almost nothing about how naturalthe aging process affects the molecular program of immune cells. We have followed how the vital activity of monocytes (one of the types of immune cells) of healthy people changes with age. Thanks to this, we have identified several regions in their genome, the epigenetic labels in which have changed greatly in one direction or another.

Research text

The study of these enzymes, scientists hopewill help to understand why they make changes in the structure of labels only in some regions of DNA and how these shifts affect the functioning of the immune system and the whole organism.

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