The Surprisingly Mundane Genetic 'Secrets' of Earth's Oldest People

While genomic research on the super-old is still in its very early stages, what's most fascinating is what the researchers are not finding.
By Alexis Madrigal
Jan 6 2012

Excerpt:
While genomic research on the super-old is in its very early stages, what's fascinating is what the researchers are not finding. These people's genomes are fundamentally the same as other people's. They are clearly very special, but not in ways that are obvious.

"We tried to see whether these two genome sequences differ in something dramatic, like major structural or functional differences, but we didn't see any major differences," explained Boston University statistician Paola Sebastiana, who worked on the new paper. "They also don't differ in the number of disease-associated variants. We have seen this several times now. People who live very long carry as many disease pre-disposing variants as people in the general population."

One of the patients had a gene variation associated with higher rates of colon cancer and was, in fact, diagnosed with advanced colon cancer in his 70s. "The cancer was treated with surgery and this person went on to live another 40 years."

"They must have something that allows them to avoid the bad effects of variants associated with diseases," Sebastiana said.

If we know one thing, it's that such things are not the result of individual gene variations but require many different genes acting in concert.
the rest image