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Published online: 19 August 2009 | doi:10.1038/nchina.2009.166

Medical genetics: Key to longevity

Felix Cheung

Introduction

© (2009) istockphoto.com

Everybody knows that nutrition, exercise and lifestyle are keys to long life, but what about genetics? Li Jin at Fudan University in Shanghai and co-workers¹ have performed a study on a Chinese population residing in Rugao, a town with an average life expectancy of 75.58 years. Their data suggest the involvement of a mitochondrial mutation in longevity.

Rugao has long been reputed as China's 'longevity town'. In 2007, the number of centenarians (aged 100 years or older) in Rugao was 112.

For the study, the researchers recruited 463 individuals with exceptional longevity (aged 95 years or older). They also randomly recruited 926 elderly (aged 60–69 years) and 463 middle-aged individuals (aged 40–49 years) as control subjects. The researchers then used mitochondrial DNA to trace the maternal ancestry of these individuals.

The analyses showed that individuals with exceptional longevity were less likely than the controls to belong to haplogroups M9 or N9 (a haplogroup is a group of individuals who share a common ancestor), and that females with exceptional longevity were more likely to belong to haplogroup D4.

Previous studies on the Japanese population have already suggested a link between D4 and longevity. The new results provide further evidence of the involvement of D4 in living a longer life.

The authors of this work are from:
State Key Laboratory of Genetic Engineering and MOE Key Laboratory of Contemporary Anthropology, School of Life Sciences and Institutes of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, China; Longevity Research Institute, Rugao, China; Department of Cellular and Structural Biology, Health Science Center, University of Texas, San Antonio, Texas, USA; School of Public Health, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.

Reference

1. Cai, X. Y. et al. Association of mitochondrial DNA haplogroups with exceptional longevity in a Chinese population. PLoS ONE 4, e6423 (2009).
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