PLoS ONE (Jan 2009)

Association of mitochondrial DNA haplogroups with exceptional longevity in a Chinese population.

  • Xiao-yun Cai,
  • Xiao-feng Wang,
  • Shi-lin Li,
  • Ji Qian,
  • De-gui Qian,
  • Fei Chen,
  • Ya-jun Yang,
  • Zi-yu Yuan,
  • Jun Xu,
  • Yidong Bai,
  • Shun-zhang Yu,
  • Li Jin

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0006423
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 4, no. 7
p. e6423

Abstract

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BACKGROUND: Longevity is a multifactorial trait with a genetic contribution, and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) polymorphisms were found to be involved in the phenomenon of longevity. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: To explore the effects of mtDNA haplogroups on the prevalence of extreme longevity (EL), a population based case-control study was conducted in Rugao--a prefecture city in Jiangsu, China. Case subjects include 463 individuals aged > or = 95 yr (EL group). Control subjects include 926 individuals aged 60-69 years (elderly group) and 463 individuals aged 40-49 years (middle-aged group) randomly recruited from Rugao. We observed significant reduction of M9 haplogroups in longevity subjects (0.2%) when compared with both elderly subjects (2.2%) and middle-aged subjects (1.7%). Linear-by-linear association test revealed a significant decreasing trend of N9 frequency from middle-aged subjects (8.6%), elderly subjects (7.2%) and longevity subjects (4.8%) (p = 0.018). In subsequent analysis stratified by gender, linear-by-linear association test revealed a significant increasing trend of D4 frequency from middle-aged subjects (15.8%), elderly subjects (16.4%) and longevity subjects (21.7%) in females (p = 0.025). Conversely, a significant decreasing trend of B4a frequency was observed from middle-aged subjects (4.2%), elderly subjects (3.8%) and longevity subjects (1.7%) in females (p = 0.045). CONCLUSIONS: Our observations support the association of mitochondrial DNA haplogroups with exceptional longevity in a Chinese population.