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The quest for genetic determinants of human longevity: challenges and insights

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TLDR
Large-scale linkage studies of long-lived families, longitudinal candidate-gene association studies and the development of analytical methods provide the potential for future progress in human studies of longevity.
Abstract
Twin studies show that genetic differences account for about a quarter of the variance in adult human lifespan. Common polymorphisms that have a modest effect on lifespan have been identified in one gene, APOE, providing hope that other genetic determinants can be uncovered. However, although variants with substantial beneficial effects have been proposed to exist and several candidates have been put forward, their effects have yet to be confirmed. Human studies of longevity face numerous theoretical and logistical challenges, as the determinants of lifespan are extraordinarily complex. However, large-scale linkage studies of long-lived families, longitudinal candidate-gene association studies and the development of analytical methods provide the potential for future progress.

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Journal ArticleDOI

Epidemiological, genetic and epigenetic aspects of the research on healthy ageing and longevity.

TL;DR: The role of epidemiological, genetic and epigenetic factors in the variation of quality of ageing and lifespan, including the most promising candidate genes investigated so far are discussed, plus the methodologies applied for their identification.
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Clustering by genetic ancestry using genome-wide SNP data

TL;DR: A novel algorithm to cluster individuals into groups with similar ancestral backgrounds based on the principal components computed by PCA is developed and it is shown that matching cases and controls using the clusters assigned by the algorithm substantially reduces population stratification bias.
Journal ArticleDOI

Exceptional Human Longevity.

TL;DR: Overall, the aggregate literature supports that the basis for exceptional longevity is multifactorial and involves disparate combinations of genes, environment, resiliency, and chance, all of which are influenced by culture and geography.
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The ApoE gene is related with exceptional longevity: a systematic review and meta-analysis

TL;DR: The main result for all ethnic groups combined was that the likelihood of reaching EL was negative associated with e4 allele carriage, and the association of ApoE with exceptional longevity (EL) was determined.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI

Gene dose of apolipoprotein E type 4 allele and the risk of Alzheimer's disease in late onset families

TL;DR: The APOE-epsilon 4 allele is associated with the common late onset familial and sporadic forms of Alzheimer9s disease (AD) in 42 families with late onset AD.
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The Future of Genetic Studies of Complex Human Diseases

TL;DR: The identification of the genetic basis of complex human diseases such as schizophrenia and diabetes has proven difficult as mentioned in this paper, and Risch and Merikangas proposed that they can best accomplish this goal by combining the power of the human genome project with association studies.
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Inflamm‐aging: An Evolutionary Perspective on Immunosenescence

TL;DR: The beneficial effects of inflammation devoted to the neutralization of dangerous/harmful agents early in life and in adulthood become detrimental late in life in a period largely not foreseen by evolution, according to the antagonistic pleiotropy theory of aging.
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The impact of heterogeneity in individual frailty on the dynamics of mortality.

TL;DR: Calculations based on Swedish mortality data suggest that standard methods overestimate current life expectancy and potential gains in life expectancy from health and safety interventions, while underestimating rates of individual aging, past progress in reducing mortality, and mortality differentials between pairs of populations.
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Genes that act downstream of DAF-16 to influence the lifespan of Caenorhabditis elegans

TL;DR: The findings suggest that the insulin/IGF-I pathway ultimately exerts its effect on lifespan by upregulating a wide variety of genes, including cellular stress-response, antimicrobial and metabolic genes, and by downregulating specific life-shortening genes.
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