Besides genes that have been shown to affect lifespan in animal models, a limited number of genetic variants have been reported to be associated with long life in humans. These studies mainly evaluated genetic variation linked to extreme human life spans (e.g. centenarians) without focusing specifically on health. Such genes include APOE (GeneID: 348) [30], [31], CETP (GeneID: 1071) [32], Interleukin 6 (GeneID: 3569) [33], [34], Interleukin 10 (GeneID: 3586) [35], [36], PON1 (GeneID: 5444) [37], FOXO3A (GeneID: 2309) [38], [39] and SIRT3 [40]. Controversy exists regarding the contribution of these and other gene variants to aging and longevity, because replication studies in different populations, as for replication studies in complex diseases, more often than not fail to confirm the initially reported associations. For instance, the common polymorphism I405V in CETP that was associated with longevity in Ashkenazi Jewish centenarians was not confirmed in an Italian replication study [41]. A comprehensive summary of genetic variants that have been tested for association with human aging/longevity can be found at http://genomics.senescence.info/genes. Almost exclusively, these studies tested single variants in candidate genes without surveying the whole gene in a more comprehensive manner.
