Exploring the impact of methylation aging on acute myeloid leukemia: Insights from the aging clock

Abstract

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is more commonly diagnosed in adults. Though there are considerable knowledge about the relationship between adult leukemia and aging, it is rarely studies in children as the occurrence of the disease is rare. Additionally, adult and pediatric AML are known to have different etiology. Studies show that in adult AML, methylation aging is accelerated compared to healthy people. However, this association has not been extensively studied in pediatric AML. To investigate potential correlations between pediatric AML and aging, we analyzed methylation aging clock models that leverage DNA methylation patterns and predict epigenetic age. By established knowledge, we observed that the predicted epigenetic age in adult AML cases exceeds the actual chronological age. Similarly, we found that predicted epigenetic age in pediatric AML cases was also higher than chronological age. In addition, we observed significant changes in the CpG probes of the Epi clock, and these changes were observed to be extensive hypomethylation. Based on this, we found that the Epi clock can recognize changes specific to AML. These findings may have implications for strategies to address aging and quality of life after treatment in pediatric AML patients.