Transcriptomic alterations during ageing reflect the shift from cancer to degenerative diseases in the elderly

Peer Aramillo Irizar, Sascha Schäuble, Daniela Esser, Marco Groth, Christiane Frahm, Steffen Priebe, Mario Baumgart, Nils Hartmann, Shiva Marthandan, Uwe Menzel, Jule Müller, Silvio Schmidt, Volker Ast, Amke Caliebe, Rainer König, Michael Krawczak, Michael Ristow, Stefan Schuster, Alessandro Cellerino, Stephan Diekmann, Christoph Englert, Peter Hemmerich, Jürgen Sühnel, Reinhard Guthke, Otto W. Witte, Matthias Platzer, Eytan Ruppin and Christoph Kaleta ()
Additional contact information
Peer Aramillo Irizar: Institute of Experimental Medicine, Christian-Albrechts-University Kiel
Sascha Schäuble: Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena
Daniela Esser: Institute of Experimental Medicine, Christian-Albrechts-University Kiel
Marco Groth: GerontoSys JenAge Consortium
Christiane Frahm: GerontoSys JenAge Consortium
Steffen Priebe: GerontoSys JenAge Consortium
Mario Baumgart: GerontoSys JenAge Consortium
Nils Hartmann: GerontoSys JenAge Consortium
Shiva Marthandan: GerontoSys JenAge Consortium
Uwe Menzel: GerontoSys JenAge Consortium
Jule Müller: Jena University Hospital
Silvio Schmidt: GerontoSys JenAge Consortium
Volker Ast: Jena University Hospital
Amke Caliebe: Christian-Albrechts-University Kiel
Rainer König: Jena University Hospital
Michael Krawczak: Christian-Albrechts-University Kiel
Michael Ristow: GerontoSys JenAge Consortium
Stefan Schuster: GerontoSys JenAge Consortium
Alessandro Cellerino: GerontoSys JenAge Consortium
Stephan Diekmann: GerontoSys JenAge Consortium
Christoph Englert: GerontoSys JenAge Consortium
Peter Hemmerich: GerontoSys JenAge Consortium
Jürgen Sühnel: GerontoSys JenAge Consortium
Reinhard Guthke: GerontoSys JenAge Consortium
Otto W. Witte: GerontoSys JenAge Consortium
Matthias Platzer: GerontoSys JenAge Consortium
Eytan Ruppin: University of Maryland
Christoph Kaleta: Institute of Experimental Medicine, Christian-Albrechts-University Kiel

Nature Communications, 2018, vol. 9, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Disease epidemiology during ageing shows a transition from cancer to degenerative chronic disorders as dominant contributors to mortality in the old. Nevertheless, it has remained unclear to what extent molecular signatures of ageing reflect this phenomenon. Here we report on the identification of a conserved transcriptomic signature of ageing based on gene expression data from four vertebrate species across four tissues. We find that ageing-associated transcriptomic changes follow trajectories similar to the transcriptional alterations observed in degenerative ageing diseases but are in opposite direction to the transcriptomic alterations observed in cancer. We confirm the existence of a similar antagonism on the genomic level, where a majority of shared risk alleles which increase the risk of cancer decrease the risk of chronic degenerative disorders and vice versa. These results reveal a fundamental trade-off between cancer and degenerative ageing diseases that sheds light on the pronounced shift in their epidemiology during ageing.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02395-2 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:9:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-017-02395-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-02395-2

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().