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. 2013 Jul 26;14(7):R75.
doi: 10.1186/gb-2013-14-7-r75.

Gene expression changes with age in skin, adipose tissue, blood and brain

Daniel Glass, Ana Viñuela, Matthew N Davies, Adaikalavan Ramasamy, Leopold Parts, David Knowles, Andrew A Brown, Asa K Hedman, Kerrin S Small, Alfonso Buil, Elin Grundberg, Alexandra C Nica, Paola Di Meglio, Frank O Nestle, Mina Ryten; UK Brain Expression consortium; MuTHER consortium; Richard Durbin, Mark I McCarthy, Panagiotis Deloukas, Emmanouil T Dermitzakis, Michael E Weale, Veronique Bataille, Tim D Spector
Collaborators

Gene expression changes with age in skin, adipose tissue, blood and brain

Daniel Glass et al. Genome Biol. .

Abstract

Background: Previous studies have demonstrated that gene expression levels change with age. These changes are hypothesized to influence the aging rate of an individual. We analyzed gene expression changes with age in abdominal skin, subcutaneous adipose tissue and lymphoblastoid cell lines in 856 female twins in the age range of 39-85 years. Additionally, we investigated genotypic variants involved in genotype-by-age interactions to understand how the genomic regulation of gene expression alters with age.

Results: Using a linear mixed model, differential expression with age was identified in 1,672 genes in skin and 188 genes in adipose tissue. Only two genes expressed in lymphoblastoid cell lines showed significant changes with age. Genes significantly regulated by age were compared with expression profiles in 10 brain regions from 100 postmortem brains aged 16 to 83 years. We identified only one age-related gene common to the three tissues. There were 12 genes that showed differential expression with age in both skin and brain tissue and three common to adipose and brain tissues.

Conclusions: Skin showed the most age-related gene expression changes of all the tissues investigated, with many of the genes being previously implicated in fatty acid metabolism, mitochondrial activity, cancer and splicing. A significant proportion of age-related changes in gene expression appear to be tissue-specific with only a few genes sharing an age effect in expression across tissues. More research is needed to improve our understanding of the genetic influences on aging and the relationship with age-related diseases.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Histogram showing the age distribution of the individuals in the study.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Venn diagram showing the overlap between significant age-affected genes in skin and adipose tissues (Benjamini-Hochberg corrected Pvalue < 0.01).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Pvalues distribution of age-affected genes in adipose, skin, and LCL tissues.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Venn diagrams showing the overlap in skin and adipose tissue for GxA interacting genes.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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