The Evolution of Ageing

The unique dataset in AnAge is perfect to study the evolution of longevity and ageing in vertebrate lineages. Our aim in this project is to study the events, including genetic changes, shaping longevity in different lineages to help understand why different species age at different paces.

For example, below is the phylogenetic tree of mammals with the average maximum longevity (in blue) of each major mammalian clade.

Legend: phylogeny based on recent published results. Figure rendered using TreeView. Average longevity for major mammalian taxa calculated from AnAge built 9. Branch lengths are not to scale.

From the figure above, it is clear that longevity evolved differently in different mammalian clades. In other words, there is a phylogenetic effect on longevity, though potential sources of bias, such as body weight, must also be considered. Our goal then is to use this type of analysis to identify phylogenetic effects on longevity and couple this information with genome data to identify which gene changes may be responsible for the evolution of longevity. For instance, we want to study the molecular evolution of the genes in GenAge across species with different rates of ageing. So far we have performed such an analysis using human-chimpanzee gene pairs.

One approach we used so far involves the study of positions in the human genome that have been previously associated with human diseases. If the disease-causing positions are conserved in non-human primates that may help us understand the evolution of disease, longevity, and maybe even ageing. Because only a few mammalian genomes have been sequenced, one way to start is by studying the mitochondrial genome. Therefore, we analysed the evolution of human disease-associated positions in the mitochondrial genome in primates. Our results and findings are available online.

As more genomes become sequenced, however, we want to expand our analysis to gather more information about the evolution of longevity and ageing in vertebrates.