ArticleInternational journal of legal medicine2020
DNA methylation levels and telomere length in human teeth: usefulness for age estimation.
Article in International journal of legal medicine, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 55 citations in OpenAlex.
- Advancing Forensic Human Chronological Age Estimation: Biochemical, Genetic, and Epigenetic Approaches from the Last 15 Years: A Systematic Review.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Pooled it
- Dental color measurement to estimate age in adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Forensic science, medicine, and pathology · 2025Pooled it
- Performance of Forensic Age Estimation by Aspartic Acid Racemization and DNA Methylation: A Systematic Review.F1000Research · 2024Pooled it
- An ELOVL2-Based Epigenetic Clock for Forensic Age Prediction: A Systematic Review.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Pooled it
- Molecular Age Estimation: Current Perspectives and Future Considerations.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Review
- Review
- Accuracy and challenges in age estimation in adults: a scoping review of anthropological, dental, biochemical, and molecular methods.Forensic science, medicine, and pathology · 2025Article
- Examining the Relationships Between Blood Cadmium, DNA Methylation Biomarker, Telomere Length, and Their Associations with Mortality in U.S. Adults.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Forensic skeletal and molecular anthropology face to face: Combining expertise for identification of human remains.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2025Review
- Improved epigenetic age prediction models by combining sex chromosome and autosomal markers.Epigenetics & chromatin · 2025Article
- Age-related patterns in mandibular third molar eruption: presenting new forensic age assessment reference data from a Chinese population.Forensic science, medicine, and pathology · 2025Article
- Molecular age prediction using skull bone samples from individuals with and without signs of decomposition: a multivariate approach combining analysis of posttranslational protein modifications and DNA methylation.International journal of legal medicine · 2025Article
- Estimation of human age using machine learning on panoramic radiographs for Brazilian patients.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Uncovering Forensic Evidence: A Path to Age Estimation through DNA Methylation.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Review
- Loss of the Y Chromosome: A Review of Molecular Mechanisms, Age Inference, and Implications for Men's Health.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Review
- Getting the chronological age out of DNA: using insights of age-dependent DNA methylation for forensic DNA applications.Genes & genomics · 2023Review
- Assessment of renal glomerulosclerosis and thickness of the carotid intima-media complex as a means of age estimation in Western European bodies.International journal of legal medicine · 2022Observational
- Article
- Identifying Methylation Patterns in Dental Pulp Aging: Application to Age-at-Death Estimation in Forensic Anthropology.International journal of molecular sciences · 2021Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
In the last decade, increasing knowledge of epigenetics has led to the development of DNA methylation-based models to predict age, which have shown high predictive accuracy. However, despite the value of teeth as forensic samples, few studies have focused on this source of DNA. This study used bisulfite pyrosequencing to measure the methylation levels of specific CpG sites located in the ELOVL2, ASPA, and PDE4C genes, with the aim of selecting the most age-informative genes and determining their associations with age, in 65 tooth samples from individuals 15 to 85 years old. As a second aim, methylation data and measurements of relative telomere length in the same set of samples were used to develop preliminary age prediction models to evaluate the accuracy of both biomarkers together and separately in estimating age from teeth for forensic purposes. In our sample, several CpG sites from ELOVL2 and PDE4C genes, as well as telomere length, were significantly associated with chronological age. We developed age prediction quantile regression models based on DNA methylation levels, with and without telomere length as an additional variable, and adjusted for type of tooth and sex. Our results suggest that telomere length may have limited usefulness as a supplementary marker for DNA methylation-based age estimation in tooth samples, given that it contributed little improvement in the prediction errors of the models. In addition, even at older ages, DNA methylation appeared to be more informative in predicting age than telomere length when both biomarkers were evaluated separately.
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Registered trials
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