Biohorology and biomarkers of aging: Current state-of-the-art, challenges and opportunities
Fedor Galkin, Polina Mamoshina, Alex Aliper, João Pedro de Magalhães, Vadim N. Gladyshev, Alex Zhavoronkov
Abstract
The aging process results in multiple traceable footprints, which can be quantified and used to estimate an organism's age. Examples of such aging biomarkers include epigenetic changes, telomere attrition, and alterations in gene expression and metabolite concentrations. More than a dozen aging clocks use molecular features to predict an organism's age, each of them utilizing different data types and training procedures. Here, we offer a detailed comparison of existing mouse and human aging clocks, discuss their technological limitations and the underlying machine learning algorithms. We also discuss promising future directions of research in biohorology - the science of measuring the passage of time in living systems. Overall, we expect deep learning, deep neural networks and generative approaches to be the next power tools in this timely and actively developing field.