Skip to content
PaperFren

Epigenetics

A DNA methylation clock for human age

Horvath S · Genome biology · 2013

Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC

A 353-CpG epigenetic clock predicts age across diverse human tissues.

Study at a glance

Design
Computational / modelling — Elastic-net DNA methylation age predictor trained/validated across multi-tissue Illumina datasets
N
N=7844 · 7,844 non-cancer samples from 82 datasets used in the overall analysis (cancer sets analysed separately)
Population
Human tissues and cell types with Illumina DNA methylation arrays
Outcome
Multi-tissue epigenetic age from 353 clock CpGs

Structured fields used in claim comparison tables when every cited study has a complete layer.

Key findings

353 clock CpGs track age accurately across tissues; stem cells appear epigenetically young.

Methodology

Trained/validated an elastic-net age predictor on thousands of Illumina methylation samples.

Limitations

Not a causal aging therapy; accuracy varies by tissue/disease.

How this study connects

Role on claims

Each row is a claim on a concept or method page where this paper supports, challenges, or qualifies the statement. Roles are hand-checked — not a model guess.

  • SupportsEpigeneticsconcept

    Multiple empirical papers in this library examine epigenetics with mechanistic biological findings.

    Evidence for the claim as stated.

  • SupportsEpigeneticsconcept

    353 clock CpGs track age accurately across tissues; stem cells appear epigenetically young.

    Evidence for the claim as stated.

  • SupportsEpigeneticsconcept

    Systems and scales differ across epigenetics studies (species, tissues, methods), so mechanisms should not be over-generalised.

    Evidence for the claim as stated.

Open questions

Tensions this paper is part of

From concept pages' “where studies disagree.” Disagreement means the same question; scope means different assays, populations, or outcomes.

Related papers in this topic

Same topic cluster — not a recommendation engine.