BBC News, By
Helen Briggs, Health editor, 14 October 2011
Related
Stories
The entire
DNA sequence of a woman who lived to 115 has been pieced together by
scientists.
 |
| The woman had some rare genetic changes |
The woman,
who was the oldest in the world at the time of her death, had the mind of
someone decades younger and no signs of dementia, say Dutch experts.
The study,
reported at a scientific conference in Canada, suggests she had genes that
protected against dementia.
Further
work could give clues to why some people are born with genes for a long life,
says a UK scientist.
It is more
than 10 years since the first draft of the human genetic code was revealed.
Since then,
perhaps a few hundred individuals have had their genes mapped in full, as the
technology to "read" DNA gets better and cheaper.
The woman,
whose identity is being kept secret, and is known only as W115, is the oldest
person to have her genes mapped.
She donated
her body to medical science, allowing doctors to study her brain and other
organs, as well as her entire genetic code.
Dr Henne
Holstege, of the Department of Clinical Genetics at the VU University Medical
Center in Amsterdam, says she appeared to have some rare genetic changes in her
DNA.
It is not
yet clear what role they carry out, but it appears there is something in her
genes that protects against dementia and other diseases of later life.
Dr Holstege
told the BBC: "We know that she's special, we know that her brain had
absolutely no signs of Alzheimer's.
"There
must be something in her body that is protective against dementia.
"We
think that there are genes that may ensure a long life and be protective
against Alzheimer's."
Proof of
principle
W115 was
born prematurely and was not expected to survive.
But she
lived a long and healthy life, and entered a care home at the age of 105.
She
eventually died from a stomach tumour, having been treated for breast cancer at
the age of 100.
A test of
her mental skills at the age of 113 showed she had the performance of a woman
aged 60-75 years.
At
post-mortem examination, doctors found no evidence of dementia or the furring
of the arteries seen in heart disease.
They are
making her gene sequence available to other researchers, to further the cause
of science.
The work,
which has yet to be published, was presented at the American Society of Human
Genetics annual meeting in Montreal, Canada.
Commenting
on the study, Dr Jeffrey Barrett, of the Sanger Centre in Cambridge, UK, said
it was an important proof of principle.
He told the
BBC: "Sequencing the genome of the world's oldest woman is an important
starting point to understand how DNA variation relates to the process of having
a long, healthy life.
"But
in order to really understand the underlying biology of living a long, healthy
life, we will need to look at the DNA sequence of hundreds or thousands of
people."
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