It turns out some parts of a dog’s life follows the same pattern as humans, though other longevity milestones don’t link up quite as nicely. (They also compared both to 133 mice methylation profiles.) They then compared them to published methylation profiles of 320 humans from age one to 103. The team looked at methylation rates in 104 Labrador retrievers between the ages of four weeks and 16 years old, reports Michelle Starr at Science Alert. They picked dogs because most live in the same environments as humans and also receive some degree of medical care, like humans do. In the new paper on dog years, which has yet to be peer reviewed and is currently posted on the preprint server bioRxiv, a team led by Tina Wang of the University of California, San Diego, compared the epigenetic clocks in people to canines to better understand the genes associated with aging. Methlyation occurs at a relatively steady rate as humans age, which allows researchers to estimate a person's age, a process they’ve dubbed the “epigenetic clock.” While these groups don’t change the DNA itself, they attach to the genetic molecule and can turn certain genes on or off, which is an important part of epigenetics, or the way environmental factors cause certain genes to express themselves. As mammals get older, their DNA picks up methyl groups that "stick" to their DNA. To understand how dogs age, the team looked at a phenomenon called DNA methylation. Calculate Your Dog's Age With This New, Improved Formula
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