The study examines how age-related changes in buccal epithelial cells affect the reliability of pediatric epigenetic biomarker research.
The study analyzes the declining proportion of buccal epithelial cells (BEC) with age and its impact on estimating epigenetic age and child health markers.
The research involves data from 4626 typically developing children, analyzing their cheek swabs for DNA methylation.
The study spans children from ages 2 months to 20 years.
Data was collected from multiple independent cohorts, combined for analysis.
Understanding BEC changes is important for accurate DNA methylation studies as these cells are commonly used noninvasive samples.
The study utilized bioinformatics tools to estimate cell-type proportions from cheek swab samples and examined correlations with chronological and predicted epigenetic ages.
The study found variability in BEC proportions increased with age and highlighted corrections needed when assessing associations with childhood health-related variables.
The age-related change in children’s oral cells is a pivotal consideration for cell-type-sensitive research.
These findings indicate the necessity of accounting for variation in BEC proportion through childhood and adolescence.
Estimation of BEC proportions improved predictive accuracy for epigenetic age assessments and disease associations.