Identification of genes associated with accelerated biological ageing through computational analysis: a systematic review

The present review has mainly focused on a systematic investigation of the genes responsible for biological ageing. Ageing has been defined as a successive decline in biological functions, leading to age-associated disorders, which have caused death. Cell homeostasis has been disturbed due to multiple factors such as accumulation of DNA damage, decrease in telomeres, replicative senescence, cell division, metabolism, respiration, autophagy, calorie management, and genetic integrity. This imbalance in cell homeostasis has a major impact on the accelerated biological ageing process. Increased risk of age-associated disorders and mortality rates makes it necessary to know the cellular and molecular mechanisms behind it. This current study provides an overview of genes and their functions associated with dysregulation in core cellular functions such as replication, genetic stability, metabolism, respiration, and autophagy. The genes associated with these biological processes have been identified through a comprehensive literature survey and additional genes were included based on the outcome of STRING analysis. These genes were functionally enriched using gene ontology. Finally, a selected set of genes was mapped with 74 biological functions. Then, a correlation map was plotted to bring out genes with maximum impact on the biological processes involved in ageing. This study not only observed the most commonly known players such as mTOR and SIRT1 but also noticed less-reported genes such as ATM, LRRK2, ERCC1, ATG5, and BECN1 which were also found to be highly impacting the process of biological ageing. Additionally, the gerontology of these top five less-reported genes also has been explored.