Associations of epigenetic aging and COVID- 19: A 3-year longitudinal study

Abstract

Aging and COVID- 19 are known to influence DNA methylation, potentially affecting the rate of aging and the risk of disease. The physiological functions of 54 volunteers—including maximal oxygen uptake (VO₂ max), grip strength, and vertical jump—were assessed just before the COVID- 19 pandemic and again 3 years later. Of these volunteers, 27 had contracted COVID- 19. Eight epigenetic clocks were used to assess the rate of aging during the 3-year period: DNAmAge showed accelerated aging, and five clocks showed slowed aging (DNAmAgeSkinBlood, DNAmAgeHannum, DNAmFitAge, PhenoAge, and DNAmTL). When we considered only females, we observed a stronger effect in the increase of DNAmAge acceleration, while we observed slowed aging in the case of SkinBloodClock, and DNAmTL. The methylation of the promoter region of the H1 FNT genes, which encodes testis-specific histone H1 family member N (H1fnt) and plays a crucial role in spermatogenesis decreased the most significantly. In contrast, the promoter of CSTL1, which encodes Cystatin-like 1, showed the most significant increase. We found that having COVID- 19 during the 3-year study period significantly increased the progress of aging assessed by DNAmGrimAge, DNAmGrimAge2, and DNAmFitAge (p = 0.024, 0.047, 0.032, respectively, after we adjusted the analysis for baseline variables). The data suggest that COVID- 19 may have a mild long-term effect on epigenetic aging.