Curiously, we find that the highest rates of age-associated LOH are observed at the latest time points, where the population consists of the longest-lived survivors (<10% of the population remains viable), and when the hazard rate of death has declined from its peak near the median life span [16]. This lack of correlation between LOH rate and hazard rate of death suggests that rDNA recombination is not limiting for life span of most cells. Nevertheless, the longest-lived individuals in the population no longer experience the same hazard rate of death, and thus their life span may be limited by a different mechanism (e.g. rDNA recombination) than the average population.
