Monthly Archives: November 2014

A new research has revealed the whole-genome sequences of the world's oldest living people.

The researchers performed whole-genome sequencing on 17 supercentenarians to explore the genetic basis underlying extreme human longevity.

Supercentenarians are the world's oldest people, living beyond 110 years of age. Seventy-four are alive worldwide, with twenty-two living in the United States.

Researchers found out that one supercentenarian carries a variant associated with a heart condition, which had little or no effect on his/her health, as this person lived over 110 years. The authors added that it is recommended by the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics to report the results to this individual as an incidental finding.

Authors didn't find significant association with extreme longevity, the authors have publicly published the genomes, making them available as a resource for future studies on the genetic basis of extreme longevity.

The study is published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.

(Posted on 13-11-2014)

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Read the original post:
World's oldest living people's gene has no longevity secrets

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

12-Nov-2014

Contact: Kayla Graham onepress@plos.org PLOS

Using fewer than twenty genomes, researchers were unable to find rare protein-altering variants significantly associated with extreme longevity, according to a study published November 12, 2014 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Hinco Gierman from Stanford University and colleagues.

Supercentenarians are the world's oldest people, living beyond 110 years of age. Seventy-four are alive worldwide, with twenty-two living in the United States. The authors of this study performed whole-genome sequencing on 17 supercentenarians to explore the genetic basis underlying extreme human longevity.

From this small sample size, the researchers were unable to find rare protein-altering variants significantly associated with extreme longevity compared to control genomes. However, they did find that one supercentenarian carries a variant associated with a heart condition, which had little or no effect on his/her health, as this person lived over 110 years. The authors added that it is recommended by the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics to report the results to this individual as an incidental finding. Although the authors didn't find significant association with extreme longevity, the authors have publicly published the genomes, making them available as a resource for future studies on the genetic basis of extreme longevity.

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In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available paper: http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0112430

Citation: Gierman HJ, Fortney K, Roach JC, Coles NS, Li H, et al. (2014) Whole-Genome Sequencing of the World's Oldest People. PLoS ONE 9(11): e112430. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0112430

Funding: This work was supported by the Ellison Medical Foundation/American Federation for Aging Research Fellowship, Stanford Dean's Fellowship, The Paul Glenn Foundation Biology of Aging Seed Grant, National Institute of General Medical Sciences Center for Systems Biology (P50 GM076547) and the University of Luxembourg - Institute for Systems Biology Program. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Originally posted here:
The whole-genome sequences of the world's oldest living people published

Published November 13, 2014

Whats the secret to living a long life? After four years of exploring just that, a team of geneticists at Stanford University have found the answer is more elusive than one might think, reported SFGate.com.

We were looking for a really simple explanation in a single gene, study author Stuart K. Kim, a Stanford geneticist and molecular biologist, told SFGate.com. And we know now that its a lot more complicated, and it will take a lot more experiments and a lot more data from the genes of more supercentenarians to find out just what might account for their ages.

Kim and a team of scientists at Stanford studied the genes of 17 supercentarians, or people who lived to the age 110 and beyond. After four years of studying an estimated 21,000 human genes, they could not find a gene or group of genes that were linked to the study participants long life span.

In the study, published Wednesday in the journal PLOS One, the researchers compared the genes of 17 supercententenarians and those of 4,300 normal subjects recorded earlier in a National Institutes of Health (NIH) study. They used a technology called whole-genome sequencing to identify genes linked with disease, immunity, and others whose functions are unclear.

None of the 17 supercentenarians in the study is alive. Their ages ranged from 100 to 116, and the study authors confirmed their life spans by referencing official documents such as birth certificates and passports, Kim told SFGate.com.

A vast majority of the supercentenarians appeared to be exempt from age-related disease at the time of their death. Only one of the subjects, who had Alzheimers disease, was not. One subject worked as a pediatrician until age 103 and died at age 114, while another drove a car until the age of 107.

As would be expected, Kim told SFGate.com, supercentenarians have escaped many age-related diseases, and their rates of cancer and heart disease and stroke are not significantly different from the general population.

The researchers found that the family members of the centenarians also have a longer than average life span, despite the fact that their lifestyle choices like smoking and diet arent especially different when compared with the habits of ordinary people.

Taken together, Kim told SFGate.com, these findings provide ample evidence that extreme longevity has a genetic component.

See more here:
Stanford University scientists still searching for longevity gene in humans