Age and higher baseline BMI, independent of gender, and other confounding factors, are risk factors for cognitive decline. Reading habit plays a protective role seven years later among northern Italian adults aged 70 years or older. Low physical performance tends, though weakly, to be associated with greater cognitive decline.
Human sirtuins are seven proteins with deacetylase activity that are emerging as key modulators of basic physiological functions. Some evidence links SIRT3 to longevity in mammals. This study aimed to investigate whether variants within SIRT3 gene were associated to human longevity. We analyzed 549 genomic DNA collected during the prospective study "Treviso Longeva," including elderly over 70 years of AGE (2014) age from the municipality of Treviso, a small city in the northeast of Italy. We genotyped SIRT3 rs3825075, rs4980329, and rs11555236 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) by real-time polymerase chain reaction allelic discrimination assay. A cross-sectional analysis performed by comparing people over and under 85 years of age did not evidence association among the SIRT3 SNPs and longevity. However, when we performed a longitudinal analysis considering mortality as a dependent variable, we observed an association of SIRT3 rs11555236 and rs4980329 with longevity in the whole population (p values corrected for potential confounders=0.04 and 0.03, respectively). After stratification according to gender, the same SNPs were associated to female longevity only (p values corrected for potential confounders=0.03 and 0.02, respectively). Finally, as rs11555236 was reported to be in linkage disequilibrium with a putative functional enhancer within the SIRT3 gene, we assessed whether rs11555236 genotypes correlated with a different level of SIRT3 protein in peripheral blood mononuclear cells. We found an increased level of SIRT3 in subjects homozygous for the (T) allele. We suggest that SIRT3 genetic variability might be relevant for the modulation of human longevity in the Italian population.
The role of folate, which is inversely associated with the severity of brain atrophy, was confirmed. Our results also confirm the association between high homocysteine levels and severe cortical-subcortical and hippocampal atrophy. Auto-CM ANN is able to highlight associations sometimes visible only in longitudinal studies through intelligent data mining of a cross-sectional study.
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