{"doi":"10.1111/acel.13197","title":"A decade of epigenetic change in aging twins: Genetic and environmental contributions to longitudinal DNA methylation","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Epigenetic changes may result from the interplay of environmental exposures and genetic influences and contribute to differences in age-related disease, disability, and mortality risk. However, the etiologies contributing to stability and change in DNA methylation have rarely been examined longitudinally. METHODS: We considered DNA methylation in whole blood leukocyte DNA across a 10-year span in two samples of same-sex aging twins: (a) Swedish Adoption Twin Study of Aging (SATSA; N = 53 pairs, 53% female; 62.9 and 72.5 years, SD = 7.2 years); (b) Longitudinal Study of Aging Danish Twins (LSADT; N = 43 pairs, 72% female, 76.2 and 86.1 years, SD=1.8 years). Joint biometrical analyses were conducted on 358,836 methylation probes in common. Bivariate twin models were fitted, adjusting for age, sex, and country. RESULTS: Overall, results suggest genetic contributions to DNA methylation across 358,836 sites tended to be small and lessen across 10 years (broad heritability M = 23.8% and 18.0%) but contributed to stability across time while person-specific factors explained emergent influences across the decade. Aging-specific sites identified from prior EWAS and methylation age clocks were more heritable than background sites. The 5037 sites that showed the greatest heritable/familial-environmental influences (p < 1E-07) were enriched for immune and inflammation pathways while 2020 low stability sites showed enrichment in stress-related pathways. CONCLUSIONS: Across time, stability in methylation is primarily due to genetic contributions, while novel experiences and exposures contribute to methylation differences. Elevated genetic contributions at age-related methylation sites suggest that adaptions to aging and senescence may be differentially impacted by genetic background.","journal":"Aging Cell","year":2020,"id":59262,"datarank":1.6717864566189284,"base_score":4.2626798770413155,"endowment":4.2626798770413155,"self_citation_contribution":0.6394019815561974,"citation_network_contribution":1.0323844750627311,"self_endowment_contribution":0.6394019815561974,"citer_contribution":1.0323844750627311,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":70,"citer_count":55,"citers_with_citation_signal":44,"citers_with_endowment":44,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9121,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":264617,"name":"Qihua Tan","orcid":"0000-0003-3194-0030","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":311684,"name":"Elizabeth Muñoz","orcid":"0000-0003-2152-5917","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":228609,"name":"Juulia Jylhävä","orcid":"0000-0003-0250-4491","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":311685,"name":"Jacob Hjelmborg","orcid":"0000-0001-9630-9149","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":311686,"name":"Lene Christiansen","orcid":"0000-0003-4960-9944","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":228610,"name":"Sara Hägg","orcid":"0000-0002-2452-1500","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":5347,"name":"Nancy L. Pedersen","orcid":"0000-0001-8057-3543","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":228607,"name":"Chandra A. Reynolds","orcid":"0000-0001-6502-7173","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":51,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-18T21:07:59.189921Z","pmid":"32710526","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}