Abstract
The plasticity of DNA methylation is manifested when persistent environmental factors, like chronic stress, change the cytosine methylation at specific DNA sites, potentially affecting chromatin state and gene expression. Tissue-specific epigenetic age, measuring deviations from the average age-related DNA methylation trajectory in a population, may be affected by such persistent environmental factors. We have developed a novel method that integrates existing information to construct tissue-specific epigenetic clocks for whole blood, and other tissues and cell-types. We train and validate the tissue-specific epigenetic clocks` performance in different publicly-available datasets.
Keywords
DNA methylation, epigenetic age acceleration