Figure 2. Evolutionary changes in gene regulation in the brain during ageing.

A broad regulatory shift in age-related gene expression appears in the primate lineage. Genes that change with ageing in the human and rhesus macaque cortex are predominantly downregulated (pink), in contrast to the mouse cortex, where most age-regulated genes are upregulated (green). This degree of gene repression is not observed in several other non-neural human tissues, including peripheral blood mononuclear cells (T.L. and B.A.Y., unpublished observations), muscle (98) and kidney (99).