Genetic determinants of Human Survival and Longevity: A cross-sectional association study in a population of Central Italy

Aim of the present thesis is to test the association of functional common variants located within possible candidate genes with human survival and longevity. Furthermore, we attempt to replicate and extend previous findings obtained on APOE, TNF-alpha and TP53 functional polymorphisms. The study has been conducted according to a cross-sectional approach and the polymorphisms have been determined for 1072 unrelated healthy individuals from Central Italy (18-106 years old) divided into three gender-specific age classes defined according to demographic information and accounting for the different survivals between sexes. Since the search for longevity-determining genes in human has largely neglected the operation of genetic interactions, we also performed gene-gene interaction analysis to assess the contribute of epistatic phenomena to the definition of genetic architecture underlying the complex trait of human longevity.