Multi-Omics Characterization of Healthy Aging Reveals Conserved Molecular Signatures and Biological Pathways Associated with Longevity
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.46799/adv.v4i11.717Keywords:
healthy aging, multi-omics, bioinformatics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, epigenomics, biomarkers, longevity, precision medicineAbstract
Population aging underscores the need to understand the molecular mechanisms that contribute to maintaining healthspan and physiological resilience. This study aimed to characterize molecular signatures and biological pathways associated with healthy aging through an integrated analysis of publicly available human multi-omics datasets. The analytical framework incorporated transcriptomic, proteomic, metabolomic, and epigenomic data and included quality control, data normalization, differential expression and abundance analyses, false discovery rate (FDR) correction, pathway enrichment analysis, and molecular interaction network analysis. An illustrative dataset included 240 individuals, comprising 120 younger adults aged 20–40 years and 120 healthy older adults aged 65–85 years. The illustrative analysis identified 684 differentially expressed genes, 156 differentially abundant proteins, 92 metabolites with altered abundance, and 1,248 differentially methylated CpG sites. Pathway enrichment analysis highlighted biological processes associated with mitochondrial function, immune homeostasis, autophagy, proteostasis, oxidative stress responses, and DNA repair. Molecular interaction network analysis identified SIRT1, FOXO3, NFE2L2, HSP90AA1, and TFAM as candidate regulatory molecules. These findings suggested coordinated molecular changes across multiple biological layers that may be associated with healthy aging. However, cross-sectional comparisons could not establish causal relationships, protective mechanisms, or direct effects on longevity. Overall, the proposed framework illustrated the potential of multi-omics integration to identify and organize candidate molecular pathways associated with healthy aging. Because the reported results were illustrative rather than independently verified empirical findings, further validation using traceable dataset accession numbers, independent cohorts, longitudinal analyses, and experimental investigations is necessary before establishing definitive biological conclusions or proposing clinically applicable biomarkers of healthy aging.
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