We found out that we can check whether the body age is higher or lower than the actual age by examining the gene

by Tristan Le

Although the human body ages with each age, it is not necessarily the case that a person of 80 years old is physically aged rather than a person of 60 years old, and a person of 60 years old becomes aged While it may be suffering from accompanying diseases, there are also patterns that are alive and healthy even at age 80. About the difference between the actual age and the body age, the research team of the US Soak Institute developed "machine learning algorithm to predict body age by examining genes".

Predicting age from the transcriptome of human dermal fibroblasts | Genome Biology | Full Text
https://genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13059-018-1599-6

Age is more than just a number: machine learning may be able to predict if you are in for healthy old age - Salk Institute for Biological Studies
https://www.salk.edu/news-release/age-is-more-than-just-a-number-machine-learning-may-be-able-to-predict-if-youre-in-for- a-healthy-old-age /

Salk scientists find genetic signatures of biological aging - The San Diego Union - Tribune
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/biotech/sd-me-salk-genetic-signs-aging-detected-20181224-story.html

Saket Navlakha , a researcher at the Soak Institute and leading the experiment, said that this project started with a conversation between Martin Hetzer , coauthor of the paper and the courtyard of the laboratory. Mr. Navlakha is a computer scientist who is interested in developing machine learning algorithms to analyze biological datasets, while Mr. Hetzer has been researching in the field of aging for many years. Mr. Hetzer wanted to collect new data on human aging.

Two of them asked Mr. Jason Fleischer, a postdoctoral researcher at Sooke Institute, and three of them launched a project "to discover genetic signs of aging without focusing on specific areas". Although there was only the purpose of tracking down signs of aging phenomenon, we can not predict what kind of discovery will be obtained in the research, we said that the project started in a completely black box state.

The research team conducted experiments on a total of 133 healthy people aged 1 to 94 years old and took fibroblasts that produced dermal components from participants to analyze the genes. The reason for watching the fibroblasts is that the research team "can collect in a simple and noninvasive manner" "Because it is a cell that remains in the body for a lifetime, unlike other cells that change in weeks or months, , It was thought that there is a high possibility of including signs of aging ".

Fibroblasts collected from an average of 13 participants every 10 years old were cultured in the laboratory and analyzed by analyzing RNA sequence in the cell called RNA-Seq and examining gene expression and the like. Subsequently, using a custom machine learning algorithm to classify RNA-Seq data, the research team was able to predict the age of the person who collected cells with an error within ± 4 years on average .

Mr. Fleischer talked about this research, "We did not try to find anything specific but we took a way to investigate all gene expression changes and classify them as algorithms, We use a method different from the method used in research on aging. The research team also released other data so that other researchers can use the results of this research.

In order to prove that the algorithm works correctly, the research team also obtained fibroblasts from ten patients with Hutchinson-Guildford-Progeria syndrome, one of progeria caused by congenital genetic abnormality We gathered and determined by algorithm. As a result, it seems that the prognosis that the progeria patient is older than the actual age is about 10 years old.

by rawpixel.com

Researchers emphasize that this research revealed the genetic signs of aging and that the causal relationship between gene expression itself and aging was not known. On the other hand, if we continue to train a lot of data and improve the precision of machine learning, we will be able to judge whether the physical age of a person is waning or not beyond the actual age.

If the aging of the body is advanced rather than the actual age, it is possible to promote conversion to a healthy lifestyle at an early stage and prevent many diseases accompanying aging. Navlakha says "Aging brings many diseases including Alzheimer's disease and other neurological diseases," said early prevention treatment could save many people.