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Epigenetic clocks may come out of rhythm—implications for the estimation of chronological age in forensic casework

There is a growing perception that DNA methylation may be influenced by exogenous and endogenous parameters. Knowledge of these factors is of great relevance for the interpretation of DNA-methylation data for the estimation of chronological age in forensic casework. We performed a literature review...

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Autores principales: Koop, Barbara Elisabeth, Reckert, Alexandra, Becker, Julia, Han, Yang, Wagner, Wolfgang, Ritz-Timme, Stefanie
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7578121/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32661599
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00414-020-02375-0
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author Koop, Barbara Elisabeth
Reckert, Alexandra
Becker, Julia
Han, Yang
Wagner, Wolfgang
Ritz-Timme, Stefanie
author_facet Koop, Barbara Elisabeth
Reckert, Alexandra
Becker, Julia
Han, Yang
Wagner, Wolfgang
Ritz-Timme, Stefanie
author_sort Koop, Barbara Elisabeth
collection PubMed
description There is a growing perception that DNA methylation may be influenced by exogenous and endogenous parameters. Knowledge of these factors is of great relevance for the interpretation of DNA-methylation data for the estimation of chronological age in forensic casework. We performed a literature review to identify parameters, which might be of relevance for the prediction of chronological age based on DNA methylation. The quality of age predictions might particularly be influenced by lifetime adversities (chronic stress, trauma/post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), violence, low socioeconomic status/education), cancer, obesity and related diseases, infectious diseases (especially HIV and Cytomegalovirus (CMV) infections), sex, ethnicity and exposure to toxins (alcohol, smoking, air pollution, pesticides). Such factors may alter the DNA methylation pattern and may explain the partly high deviations between epigenetic age and chronological age in single cases (despite of low mean absolute deviations) that can also be observed with “epigenetic clocks” comprising a high number of CpG sites. So far, only few publications dealing with forensic age estimation address these confounding factors. Future research should focus on the identification of further relevant confounding factors and the development of models that are “robust” against the influence of such biological factors by systematic investigations under targeted inclusion of diverse and defined cohorts.
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spelling pubmed-75781212020-10-27 Epigenetic clocks may come out of rhythm—implications for the estimation of chronological age in forensic casework Koop, Barbara Elisabeth Reckert, Alexandra Becker, Julia Han, Yang Wagner, Wolfgang Ritz-Timme, Stefanie Int J Legal Med Review There is a growing perception that DNA methylation may be influenced by exogenous and endogenous parameters. Knowledge of these factors is of great relevance for the interpretation of DNA-methylation data for the estimation of chronological age in forensic casework. We performed a literature review to identify parameters, which might be of relevance for the prediction of chronological age based on DNA methylation. The quality of age predictions might particularly be influenced by lifetime adversities (chronic stress, trauma/post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), violence, low socioeconomic status/education), cancer, obesity and related diseases, infectious diseases (especially HIV and Cytomegalovirus (CMV) infections), sex, ethnicity and exposure to toxins (alcohol, smoking, air pollution, pesticides). Such factors may alter the DNA methylation pattern and may explain the partly high deviations between epigenetic age and chronological age in single cases (despite of low mean absolute deviations) that can also be observed with “epigenetic clocks” comprising a high number of CpG sites. So far, only few publications dealing with forensic age estimation address these confounding factors. Future research should focus on the identification of further relevant confounding factors and the development of models that are “robust” against the influence of such biological factors by systematic investigations under targeted inclusion of diverse and defined cohorts. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2020-07-14 2020 /pmc/articles/PMC7578121/ /pubmed/32661599 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00414-020-02375-0 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Review
Koop, Barbara Elisabeth
Reckert, Alexandra
Becker, Julia
Han, Yang
Wagner, Wolfgang
Ritz-Timme, Stefanie
Epigenetic clocks may come out of rhythm—implications for the estimation of chronological age in forensic casework
title Epigenetic clocks may come out of rhythm—implications for the estimation of chronological age in forensic casework
title_full Epigenetic clocks may come out of rhythm—implications for the estimation of chronological age in forensic casework
title_fullStr Epigenetic clocks may come out of rhythm—implications for the estimation of chronological age in forensic casework
title_full_unstemmed Epigenetic clocks may come out of rhythm—implications for the estimation of chronological age in forensic casework
title_short Epigenetic clocks may come out of rhythm—implications for the estimation of chronological age in forensic casework
title_sort epigenetic clocks may come out of rhythm—implications for the estimation of chronological age in forensic casework
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7578121/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32661599
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00414-020-02375-0
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