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Telomere Length Among the Elderly and Oldest-Old

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 February 2012

Claus Bischoff ,
Jesper Graakjaer ,
Hans Christian Petersen ,
Bernard Jeune ,
Vilhelm A. Bohr ,
Steen Koelvraa  and
Kaare Christensen
Claus Bischoff
Affiliation:
Institute of Human Genetics, Aarhus University, Denmark.
Jesper Graakjaer
Affiliation:
Institute of Human Genetics, Aarhus University, Denmark.
Hans Christian Petersen
Affiliation:
Department of Statistics, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark.
Bernard Jeune
Affiliation:
The Danish Twin Registry and Aging Research Center, Institute of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark.
Vilhelm A. Bohr
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Molecular Gerontology, National Institutes on Aging, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America.
Steen Koelvraa
Affiliation:
Institute of Human Genetics, Aarhus University, Denmark; Department of Clinical Genetics, County Hospital of Vejle, Vejle, Denmark.
Kaare Christensen*
Affiliation:
The Danish Twin Registry and Aging Research Center, Institute of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark. [email protected]
*
*Address for correspondence: Professor Kaare Christensen, The Danish Twin Registry, Institute of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, J. B. Winsløws Vej 9B, 5000 Odense C, Denmark.

Abstract

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Human chromosomes terminate in a number of repeats of the sequence TTAGGG. At birth, each chromosome end is equipped with approximately 15 kb of telomere sequence, but this sequence is shortened during each cell division. In cell cultures telomere shortening is associated with senescence, a phenomenon that has also been observed in normal adult tissues, indicating that telomere loss is associated with organismal ageing. Previous work has established that the rate of telomere loss in humans is age dependent, and recent work shows a sex-specific difference in telomere length and shortening in individuals over the age span of 20 to 75 years. Here, terminal restriction fragment lengths on DNA purified from whole blood were measured to examine the mean telomere length in a cross-sectional cohort of 816 Danish individuals of age 73 to 101 years. In this age group, females show a linear correlation between telomere length and age, whereas the pattern tends to be nonlinear (quadratic in age) for males. This difference in telomere length dynamics between the 2 sexes may be caused by several different mechanisms, including differences in selection by mortality, differences in leukocyte population or different telomerase expression pattern.

Type
Articles
Information
Twin Research and Human Genetics , Volume 8 , Issue 5 , 01 October 2005 , pp. 425 - 432
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2005