Stats_Think t1_j98sdy6 wrote on February 20, 2023 at 3:06 AM

DNA replicates with a very high amount of fidelity (base pairs rarely get mis-matched), but it's possible to measure these mutations over time, if you had a reference sample from "x" number of years ago. Rates of mutations (and to be clear, by "mutations", I'm simply referring to the DNA polymerase making a "mistake" and the mis-matched repair not catching all of them) could probably be tracked and an age can be estimated. Is there a validated way to do this to account for all variations in someone's DNA (such as due to diet, environment, stress, etc.)? Good question!

Telomeres (ends of chromosomes) are also known to shrink over time, and this is also hard to answer in terms of "measuring" telomere ends to estimate age due to many confounding factors, but I'm sure someone is working on it.

tzl-owl t1_j99dhx8 wrote on February 20, 2023 at 6:33 AM

In terms of feasibility today, telomeres YES, but mutations NO. I work in that area and will say that current technology isn’t accurate enough to spot mutations in single cells which is what you’d need (it works in cancer which have clonal expansions of mutated cells and gives you better variant call confidence). Right now sequencing error rates are too high still.