MammalMethylClock R package: Software for DNA Methylation-Based epigenetic clocks in mammals

Joseph Zoller; Steve Horvath

doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/btae280

MammalMethylClock R package: Software for DNA Methylation-Based epigenetic clocks in mammals

Bioinformatics. 2024 Apr 24:btae280. doi: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btae280. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Joseph Zoller¹, Steve Horvath^{2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biostatistics, Fielding School of Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles, USA.
² Department of Human Genetics, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, USA.
³ Altos Labs, San Diego, USA.

PMID: 38656974
DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btae280

Abstract

Motivation: Epigenetic clocks are prediction methods based on DNA methylation levels in a given species or set of species. Defined as multivariate regression models, these DNA methylation-based biomarkers of age or mortality risk are useful in species conservation efforts and in preclinical studies.

Results: We present an R package called MammalMethylClock for the construction, assessment, and application of epigenetic clocks in different mammalian species. The R package includes the utility for implementing pre-existing mammalian clocks from the Mammalian Methylation Consortium.

Availability: The source code and documentation manual for MammalMethylClock, and clock coefficient .csv files that are included within this software package, can be found on Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10971037.

Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.