Abstract
There is accumulating evidence that adult-life health status and rate of age-associated functional decline may be programmed early in life. The key role of epigenetic mechanisms in mediating these life-long effects, including DNA methylation histone modification and regulation by non-coding RNAs, has been demonstrated. Early-life environmental conditions were repeatedly shown to significantly affect life-course change of epigenetic patterns known as “epigenetic drift ”. Epigenetic drift may arise following both stochastic errors in maintaining epigenetic marks and adaptive changes directly mediated by specific environmental cues. Recently, DNA methylation -based methods for determining rate of epigenetic aging were developed. Recent cohort studies using these methods have shown that ticking rate of epigenetic aging clock can be adjusted in early life, and that life-course dynamics of individual discrepancies between chronological and epigenetic age might be developmentally programmed. In this chapter, recent evidence suggestive of developmental programming of life-course dynamics of epigenetic drift is reviewed and discussed.
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Vaiserman, A., Lushchak, O. (2019). Early-Life Adjustment of Epigenetic Aging Clock. In: Vaiserman, A. (eds) Early Life Origins of Ageing and Longevity. Healthy Ageing and Longevity, vol 9. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24958-8_14
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