Biology subjects

Mortensen, L. H.

Publications and source records attributed to Mortensen, L. H..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

Population-scale analysis of inheritance patterns across 858,635 individuals reveals recent historical migration patterns across the North Sea from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution

The North Seas historical migrations have impacted the genetic structure of its neighbouring populations. We analysed haplotype sharing among 858,635 modern individuals from Denmark and Britain to infer migration history from the Middle Ages to the modern day. We estimated the genetic relationship among 370,259 Danes using Danish healthcare registries and validated those with retrievable pedigree relationships from a national family registry. We also compared their haplotype sharing with 488,376 British individuals from the UK Biobank. Our analysis revealed the fine-grained population genetic history of Denmark and identified distinct coastal and island communities with a history of genetic isolation and bottlenecks. We observed a significant population decline in Jutland compared to Zealand from the late medieval period to the start of early modern period, accompanied by migration from Jutland to Zealand, corresponding to historical evidence. We identified two major haplotype sharing patterns between Denmark and Great Britain: (1) early coast-to-coast connections between South Jutland and eastern England, likely driven by migration, settlement, continuous trade and the movement of people across the North Sea from the Middle Ages through early modern times, and (2) later city-to-city connections such as those between London and Kobenhavn, likely shaped by the reorientation of economic and trading centres in Britain and Denmark, and the increased shipping from early modern times towards the Industrial Revolution. Further comparisons using other North Sea countries showed both shared and unique histories of genetic exchange with Denmark and Britain. Our study provides novel genetic evidence of migration across the North Sea from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution. It highlights the power of nationwide biobanks in reconstructing fine-scale historical population movements among closely related populations.

genetics↗

bioRxiv2023

The human pathome shows sex specific aging patterns post-development

Little is known about tissue specific changes that occur with aging in humans. Using the description of 33 million histological samples we extract thousands of age- and mortality-associated features from text narratives that we call The Human Pathome (pathoage.com). Notably, we can broadly determine when pathological aging starts, indicating a sexual dimorphism with females aging earlier but slower and males aging later but faster. Using machine learning, we employ unsupervised topic-modelling to identify terms and themes that predict age and mortality. As a proof of principle, we cross reference these terms in PubMed to identify nintedanib as a potential aging intervention and show that nintedanib reduces markers of cellular senescence, reduces pro-fibrotic gene pathways in senescent cells and extends the lifespan of fruit flies. Our findings pave the way for expanded exploitation of population datasets towards discovery of novel aging interventions.

physiology↗

bioRxiv2021

Deep Learning Shows Cellular Senescence Is a Barrier to Cancer Development

Cellular senescence is a critical component of aging and many age-related diseases, but understanding its role in human health is challenging in part due to the lack of exclusive or universal markers. Using neural networks, we achieve high accuracy in predicting senescence state and type from the nuclear morphology of DAPI-stained human fibroblasts, murine astrocytes and fibroblasts derived from premature aging diseases in vitro. After generalizing this approach, the predictor recognizes an increasing rate of senescent cells with age in H&E-stained murine liver tissue and human dermal biopsies. Evaluating corresponding medical records reveals that individuals with increased senescent cells have a significantly decreased rate of malignant neoplasms, lending support for the protective role of senescence in limiting cancer development. In sum, we introduce a novel predictor of cellular senescence and apply it to diagnostic medical images, indicating cancer occurs more frequently for those with a lower rate of senescence.

cell biology↗

bioRxiv2017

Centenarian Hotspots in Denmark

BackgroundThe study of regions with high prevalence of centenarians is motivated by a desire to find determinants of healthy ageing. While existing research has focused on selected candidate regions, we explore the existence of hotspots in the whole the Denmark, which is a small and homogeneous country.\n\nMethodsWe performed a Kulldorff spatial scan across the whole of Denmark, searching for regions of birth and regions of residence at age 71 where a significantly increased percentage of the cohort born 1906-1915 became centenarians. We compared mortality hazards for the hotspot regions to the rest of the country by sex and residence at age 71.\n\nResultsWe found a birth hotspot of 222 centenarians, 1.37 times more than the expected number, centered on a group of fairly remote rural islands. Mortality was lower for those born in the hotspot, and the advantage was strongest in those born and remaining in the hotspot. At age 71, we found one primary hotspot with 1.39 times the expected number of centenarians, located in the generally high-income suburbs of the Danish capital.\n\nConclusionWe identified a Danish centenarian birth hotspot that persisted over a period of at least 30 years. Exactly what drives the appearance of this birth hotspot is unknown, but selection may explain hotspots based on residence at age 71.

epidemiology↗