Environmental and age effects on methylation changes in human brain and blood cells

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that DNA methylation may 1 e associated with disease, aging, the rate of aging and genetics. In this thesis, age is accurately predicted from DNA methylation in brain and blood tissues using two different algorithms, Random Forest and Linear Regression. Relationships between DNA methylation, genetics, disease and aging rate were also identified. Furthermore, the differences between the real ages and the predicted ages were found to be associated with the age of onset of aging related disease. The findings presented in this thesis take us a step further in understanding the causes of aging and age related disease and further prove the theory that methylation is related to our internal biological clock and disease.