What this means
Researchers looked at blood DNA marks in King penguins of known ages. They found changes linked to stem cells that make blood. This is an early study not yet checked by other scientists, so it does not show what causes aging.
Plain-English summary written by an AI model from the abstract. The original is below.
- Who it was tested in
- 126 King penguins, compared with 1,501 humans
- Kind of research
- Early results, not yet checked by other scientists
The science
- Original title
- An epigenetic palimpsest: the King penguin's blood methylome reveals conserved hematopoietic ageing
- Authors
- Hukkanen, M., Nitta Fernandes, F. A., Davis, L. R. et al.
- Journal
- bioRxiv (preprint, not yet peer reviewed)
- Published
- Oct 13, 2026
- Study type
- Preprint
Abstract
Age-associated DNA methylation is conserved across vertebrates, but whether epigenetic ageing reflects cellular ageing programmes or age-dependent shifts in cell composition remains unresolved. Here, using 126 whole-blood methylomes from known-age King penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus), we exploit a vertebrate system in which nucleated erythrocytes dominate peripheral blood, minimizing the influence of leukocyte heterogeneity. We identify a core set of 409 ageing-associated genes showing lifelong, clock-like methylation change. These genes are strongly enriched for regulators of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cell (HSPC) function and niche communication. Integration of methylome, transcriptome and chromatin-accessibility data reveals that many of the strongest ageing signals derive from genes inactive in mature erythrocytes, consistent with the persistence of epigenetic states from ancestral hematopoietic progenitors. A comparison with methylation profiles from 1,501 humans identified a conserved cross-species subset of ageing genes, and a human epigenetic age model constructed solely from orthologues of penguin ageing genes predicts chronological age with high accuracy while remaining largely insensitive to blood cell composition. We propose that blood epigenetic ageing signatures contain a long-lived cellular memory of stem-cell ageing, that may represent an evolutionarily ancient layer of the vertebrate ageing process.
Hukkanen, M., Nitta Fernandes, F. A., Davis, L. R. et al. An epigenetic palimpsest: the King penguin's blood methylome reveals conserved hematopoietic ageing. bioRxiv. 2026. doi:10.64898/2026.10.10.757848. https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.10.10.757848