ImAge quantitates aging and rejuvenation

Martin Alvarez-Kuglen, Kenta Ninomiya, Haodong Qin, Delany Rodriguez, Lorenzo Fiengo, Chen Farhy, Wei Mien Hsu, Brian Kirk, Aaron Havas, Gen Sheng Feng, Amanda J. Roberts, Rozalyn M. Anderson, Manuel Serrano, Peter D. Adams, Tatyana O. Sharpee, Alexey V. Terskikh

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

For efficient, cost-effective and personalized healthcare, biomarkers that capture aspects of functional, biological aging, thus predicting disease risk and lifespan more accurately and reliably than chronological age, are essential. We developed an imaging-based chromatin and epigenetic age (ImAge) that captures intrinsic age-related trajectories of the spatial organization of chromatin and epigenetic marks in single nuclei, in mice. We show that such trajectories readily emerge as principal changes in each individual dataset without regression on chronological age, and that ImAge can be computed using several epigenetic marks and DNA labeling. We find that interventions known to affect biological aging induce corresponding effects on ImAge, including increased ImAge upon chemotherapy treatment and decreased ImAge upon caloric restriction and partial reprogramming by transient OSKM expression in liver and skeletal muscle. Further, ImAge readouts from chronologically identical mice inversely correlated with their locomotor activity, suggesting that ImAge may capture elements of biological and functional age. In sum, we developed ImAge, an imaging-based biomarker of aging with single-cell resolution rooted in the analysis of spatial organization of epigenetic marks.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1308-1327
Number of pages20
JournalNature Aging
Volume4
Issue number9
Early online date29 Aug 2024
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2024

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'ImAge quantitates aging and rejuvenation'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this