[Article] Estimating human age from T-cell DNA rearrangements

(Zubakov, D. et al. Current Biol. 20, R970–R971 (2010).
This paper describes a method for predicting the age of an individual from human blood. During immune system development, the rearrangement of T cell receptor loci produces episomal DNA molecules, the levels of which are known to decrease with age. Zubakov and colleagues show that quantification of these molecules by PCR can accurately predict the age of a sample donor, even with degraded or very small samples. This approach should be useful for identifying disaster victims or providing leads from crime scenes.