About this Research Topic

Background

With the development of society and changes within the modern lifestyle, aging has become a heavy burden, along with many age-related diseases which include cardiovascular diseases, degenerative nerve diseases, metabolic diseases, and cancers, amongst others. Therefore, understanding aging, and the discovery of novel therapeutic targets for age-related diseases is essential to human health. Further study is very difficult due to the complexity of aging and age-related diseases, however the invention of omic technologies has improved this. Aging has already been studied at a singular level, and many of those diseases have already been studied widely with single omics approached, but the mechanisms remain to be explored in depth as biological processes, physiology and pathology develop at multiple levels, e.g., gene replication, transcription, epigenetic modification, translation, post-translational modification, metabolism, molecule trafficking, etc.

Some changes are consistently evolving while others are inconsistent and sporadic. In this Research Topic, we want to explore the coordination among physiological regulation at multiple levels, to further the understanding of aging and age-related diseases. With the fast development of omic technologies , it is more affordable and feasible, with a shorter timespan, to conduct omics based studies. Therefore, more human and animal samples can be analysed and changes detected at multiple levels by utilizing more than one omic technique. The functions of the same or different molecules are affected by different levels of regulations to different degrees. The different forms of products expressed by the same gene, i.e., RNA, protein, metabolite, etc., play different roles in the same or different biological processes and signaling pathways. With the invention and practice of new bioinformatic methods and algorithms, different omic studies can be conducted on the same sample and the results from different omics studies can be combined and integrated within the same analysis. The combination and integration of multi-omics, e.g., genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, lipidomics, etc., provides great opportunities to dissect and compare the molecular regulation of aging at multiple levels,to reveal the coordination among regulatory changes at multiple levels of control.

We welcome high-quality, original research and review articles focused on improving the current knowledge in the aging and age-related diseases field from the aspects of clinics and basic science. Specifically, at least more than one omic technique should be applied in the original research or discussed in the review article. Areas to be covered in this research topic may include, but are not limited to:
• Tracing progression of aging or age-related diseases at different levels with multi-omics
• Comparison of changes in different species or tissues at different levels
• Feedback and crosstalk of different levels of regulations
• New techniques and bioinformatic methods and algorithms to combine and integrate multi-omics
• Machine learning models with multi-omics data

Please Note: Descriptive studies (e.g. gene expression profiles, or transcript, protein, or metabolite levels under particular conditions or in a particular cell type) and studies consisting solely of bioinformatic investigation of publicly available genomic / transcriptomic data do not fall within the scope of the journal unless they are expanded and provide significant biological or mechanistic insight into the process being studied.

Keywords: Aging, Age-related diseases, Multi-omics, Integration, Bioinformatics, Molecular regulation, Clinics, Basic science

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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