{"doi":"10.17615/z25c-0c90","title":"Expression of p16 INK4a in peripheral blood T-cells is a biomarker of human aging","abstract":"Expression of the p16INK4a tumor suppressor sharply increases with age in most mammalian tissues, and contributes to an age-induced functional decline of certain self-renewing compartments. These observations have suggested that p16INK4a expression could be a biomarker of mammalian aging. To translate this notion to human use, we determined p16INK4a expression in cellular fractions of human whole blood, and found highest expression in peripheral blood T-lymphocytes (PBTL). We then measured INK4/ARF transcript expression in PBTL from two independent cohorts of healthy humans (170 donors total), and analyzed their relationship with donor characteristics. Expression of p16INK4a, but not other INK4/ARF transcripts, appeared to exponentially increase with donor chronologic age. Importantly, p16INK4a expression did not independently correlate with gender or body-mass index, but was significantly associated with tobacco use and physical inactivity. In addition, p16INK4a expression was associated with plasma interleukin-6 concentration, a marker of human frailty. These data suggest that p16INK4a expression in PBTL is an easily measured, peripheral blood biomarker of molecular age.","journal":"UNC Libraries","year":2020,"id":96261,"datarank":0.5375278407684165,"base_score":3.58351893845611,"endowment":3.58351893845611,"self_citation_contribution":0.5375278407684165,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.5375278407684165,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":35,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9641,"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":233166,"name":"Christin E. Burd","orcid":"0000-0002-7919-3954","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":418652,"name":"Yan Liu","orcid":"0000-0002-8581-2571","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":428506,"name":"Hyunsoon Cho","orcid":"0000-0002-3261-3114","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":85400,"name":"Norman E. Sharpless","orcid":"0000-0001-7078-9455","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":388155,"name":"Nancy E. Thomas","orcid":"0000-0002-2230-1328","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":390426,"name":"Joseph G. Ibrahim","orcid":"0000-0003-2428-6552","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":445404,"name":"Hanna K. Sanoff","orcid":"0000-0001-8679-4486","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":478200,"name":"Chad Torrice","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-18T22:34:34.781847Z","pmid":null,"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":[]}