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
. 2012 Apr 23;9(1):8.
doi: 10.1186/1742-4933-9-8.

Genetics of longevity. data from the studies on Sicilian centenarians

Carmela R Balistreri  1 , Giuseppina Candore, Giulia Accardi, Manuela Bova, Silvio Buffa, Matteo Bulati, Giusi I Forte, Florinda Listì, Adriana Martorana, Marisa Palmeri, Mariavaleria Pellicanò, Loredana Vaccarino, Letizia Scola, Domenico Lio, Giuseppina Colonna-Romano
Affiliations

Genetics of longevity. data from the studies on Sicilian centenarians

Carmela R Balistreri et al. Immun Ageing. .

Abstract

The demographic and social changes of the past decades have determined improvements in public health and longevity. So, the number of centenarians is increasing as a worldwide phenomenon. Scientists have focused their attention on centenarians as optimal model to address the biological mechanisms of "successful and unsuccessful ageing". They are equipped to reach the extreme limits of human life span and, most importantly, to show relatively good health, being able to perform their routine daily life and to escape fatal age-related diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases and cancer. Thus, particular attention has been centered on their genetic background and immune system. In this review, we report our data gathered for over 10 years in Sicilian centenarians. Based on results obtained, we suggest longevity as the result of an optimal performance of immune system and an over-expression of anti-inflammatory sequence variants of immune/inflammatory genes. However, as well known, genetic, epigenetic, stochastic and environmental factors seem to have a crucial role in ageing and longevity. Epigenetics is associated with ageing, as demonstrated in many studies. In particular, ageing is associated with a global loss of methylation state. Thus, the aim of future studies will be to analyze the weight of epigenetic changes in ageing and longevity.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Terry DF, Wilcox MA, McCormick MA, Pennington JY, Schoenhofen EA, Andersen SL, Perls TT. Lower all-cause, cardiovascular, and cancer mortality in centenarians' offspring. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2004;52:2074–2076. doi: 10.1111/j.1532-5415.2004.52561.x. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Terry DF, McCormick M, Andersen S, Pennington J, Schoenhofen E, Palaima E, Bausero M, Ogawa K, Perls TT, Asea A. Cardiovascular disease delay in centenarian offspring: role of heat shock proteins. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2004;1019:502–505. doi: 10.1196/annals.1297.092. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Barzilai N, Gabriely I, Gabriely M, Iankowitz N, Sorkin JD. Offspring of centenarians have a favorable lipid profile. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2001;49:76–79. doi: 10.1046/j.1532-5415.2001.49013.x. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Rose G, Passarino G, Scornaienchi V, Romeo G, Dato S, Bellizzi D, Mari V, Feraco E, Maletta R, Bruni A, Franceschi C, De Benedictis G. The mitochondrial DNA control region shows genetically correlated levels of heteroplasmy in leukocytes of centenarians and their offspring. BMC Genomics. 2007;8:293. doi: 10.1186/1471-2164-8-293. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Pawelec G, Akbar A, Caruso C, Solana R, Grubeck-Loebenstein B, Wikby A. Human immunosenescence: is it infectious? Immunol Rev. 2005;205:257–268. doi: 10.1111/j.0105-2896.2005.00271.x. - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources