Page 10 - Clinical Connections - Spring 2022

RVC RESEARCH STUDY VETERINARY SERVICES RVC.AC.UK
Clinical Pathology

THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH FOR OUR FELINE
COMPANIONS?

Balázs Szladovits, Associate Professor of Clinical Pathology

geing research has come a long Finding reliable biological measures of which has developed a pan-mammalian
way since the late middle age’s ageing (and general health) has been a epigenetic clock, based on 348 species.
A holy grail of procurement of the longstanding research aspiration, based The fact that such a clock could be
philosopher’s stone through to the 15th on the premise that such biomarkers would developed highlights a highly conserved
century quest to find the fountain of youth, lead to the understanding of how ageing programing of the ageing process across all
to our current scientific understanding. increases susceptibility to certain diseases,
Recent advancements of biotechnology along with the identification of strategies for
and big data-aided research is causing an promoting healthy ageing.
explosion in this intriguing field. An exciting Sadly, the Covid pandemic has highlighted
new tool in the arena is the discovery of the the serious consequences of ill health,
‘epigenetic clock’ – pioneered by Professor especially among the elderly. While lifespan
Steve Horvath at UCLA. extension still appears elusive, increasing
Epigenetics is the study of processes the ‘healthspan’ (years in good health) could
that can change gene expression, without have major implications for ageing Western
changing the DNA sequence itself. One societies and their overburdened health
such change is DNA methylation, which can systems.
activate or turn off individual genes. With The numerous studies employing this new
ageing, DNA methylation appears to change research tool have revealed that many of
in a predictable manner. The speed of this our previously thought healthy habits indeed
is slightly different for everyone, based on are associated with slower epidemiologic
genetics and likely lifestyle. This new tool ageing, including avoidance of obesity, Cross-validation study of human-cat clocks
based on analysis of the epigenetic data smoking, and following a healthy diet (high applied to human tissue sample
of an individual can reveal their ‘biological vegetable and fish intake) and exercising.
age’. While everyone’s chronological age Another exciting area of ageing research these species, which is paving the way for
advances at the same speed, individual’s is the search of anti-ageing interventions, new discoveries of the molecular details of
‘biological clocks’ have different paces. which were mostly limited previously to this process. If an anti-ageing intervention is
The application of this clock on large animal models, due to the length of time it successful to slow the biologic clock in one
human epidemiological data sets revealed would take to study it in humans. mammalian species, it is likely to work in
that discordance between the predicted An exciting recent collaboration between humans and other mammals, opening novel
(epigenetic age) and chronological age RVC scientist Dr Balázs Szladovits, Dr Ken possibilities within this field.
is associated with diverse age-related Raj from Public Health England and Professor This exciting collaboration was made
pathologies, when the former is greater than Steve Horvath of UCLA has resulted in the possible by all the clinical samples that
the latter. Since then, an ever-increasing development of an epigenetic clock for cats, are submitted to the RVC’s Diagnostic
scope of pathologies have been found to and even a dual clock for cats and humans Laboratories, from which residual samples
be associated with accelerated epigenetic based on the same mathematical algorithm are stored in our valuable DNA bank, under
ageing. These features are consistent with that assesses the age as a percent of the strict ethical regulations.
the view that the epigenetic clock in effect known maximal lifespan, therefore bridging With this novel epigenetic clock for cats,
measures biological age – which is an the large age difference between ourselves the transatlantic research group’s goal is
indicator of health; a notion that is supported and our companions with remarkably high to apply this tool in studying the ageing
by the clock’s ability to predict time-to- correlation. Furthermore, this collaboration and disease processes of cats, both for
pathology and all-cause (non-accidental) has also valuably contributed to the work their own benefit, but also as a model for
mortality. of the Mammalian Methylation Consortium, humans, given the similar environment our
companions live in (compared to laboratory
animals in artificial environments).
Lastly, but not least, given the precision of
the new epigenetic clock, it could even be
an invaluable tool for age determination in
the forensic field, with much higher accuracy
than was previously possible.

For the Diagnostic Pathology Service,
please call:01707 666 208
Biological age can be contrasted with chronological age as a result of epigenetics research py Email:
diagnosticlabs@rvc.ac.uk
10 Spring 2022