Authors
Blaise L Mariner, Brianah M McCoy, Ashlee Greenier, Layla Brassington, Elizabeth Slikas, Christine Adjangba, Claire Cheng, Abbey Marye, Benjamin R Harrison, Tal Bamberger, Yadid Algavi, Efrat Muller, Adam Harris, Emily Rout, Cindy Reichel, Vista Sohrab, Dog Aging Project Consortium‡, Elinor Karlsson, Joshua M Akey, Anne C Avery, Elhanan Borenstein, Daniel E L Promislow, Noah Snyder-Mackler, Joshua M Akey, Rozalyn M Anderson, Elhanan Borenstein, Marta G Castelhano, Amanda E Coleman, Kate E Creevy, Matthew D Dunbar, Virginia R Fajt, Jessica M Hoffman, Erica C Jonlin, Matt Kaeberlein, Elinor K Karlsson, Kathleen F Kerr, Jing Ma, Evan L MacLean, Stephanie McGrath, Natasha J Olby, Daniel E L Promislow, May J Reed, Audrey Ruple, Stephen M Schwartz, Sandi Shrager, Noah Snyder-Mackler, M Katherine Tolbert
Published in
Science (New York, N.Y.). Volume 394. Issue 6820. Pages eaeb2986. Oct 08, 2026. Epub Oct 08, 2026.
Abstract
The extraordinary lifespan variation in domestic dogs provides a natural experiment for testing how intrinsic rates of biological aging shape lifespan. Using 1640 methylomes from 894 dogs, we developed an epigenetic clock that predicted mortality and demonstrated that epigenetic aging is fastest early in life. At orthologs of human age-associated genes, dogs exhibited concordant age effects on promoter methylation, highlighting conserved remodeling of immune pathways. We found that larger and male dogs, which are shorter lived, exhibit accelerated molecular aging. Distinct epigenetic architectures mediated these effects: Sex-dependent methylation changes were concentrated on the X chromosome, whereas size-associated methylation was especially pronounced at transposable elements (TEs). These findings show that epigenetics reflects lifespan differences in dogs and identifies TEs as potential mediators of size-associated lifespan.
PMID:
42848887
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 09 Oct 2026.
Read full publication at:
Please sign in
to see all details.
Advertisement
Stats
- Recommendations n/a n/a positive of 0 vote(s)
- Views 8
- Comments 0