Dietary folate limitation late in life

Folate is a vitamin essential for cell growth and has been used to prevent congenital abnormalities. However, little is known about how folate affects health in older adults. We examined healthspan as a function of dietary folate intake. To begin to measure such effects, we performed a small (2x2; sex-by-diet) pilot study in the long-lived inbred mouse strain C57BL/6. There were 20 mice per group. At 52w of age, half the mice were maintained on the standard diet (AIN-93G), and the other half were placed on a folate/choline-deficient (F/C-) diet. The standard diet contains 2mg/kg of folic acid and 2.5g/kg choline bitartrate (F/C+), while the F/C- diet contains 0mg/kg of folic acid and choline bitartrate. The mice were sacrificed at 120w. At that point, only 39 mice were alive, from both sexes and groups. Samples from liver tissue were used to prepare the libraries described here, for RNAseq.