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The Heritability of Telomere Length Among the Elderly and Oldest-Old

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 February 2012

Claus Bischoff ,
Jesper Graakjaer ,
Hans Christian Petersen ,
Jacob v. B. Hjelmborg ,
James W. Vaupel ,
Vilhelm 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.
Jacob v. B. Hjelmborg
Affiliation:
The Danish Twin Registry, Institute of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark.
James W. Vaupel
Affiliation:
The Danish Twin Registry, Institute of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark.
Vilhelm 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, Vejle Hospital, Vejle, Denmark.
Kaare Christensen*
Affiliation:
The Danish Twin Registry, Institute of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark. KChristensen@health.sdu.dk
*
*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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A tight link exists between telomere length and both population doublings of a cell culture and age of a given organism. The more population doublings of the cell culture or the higher the age of the organism, the shorter the telomeres. The proposed model for telomere shortening, called the end replication problem, explains why the telomere erodes at each cellular turnover. Telomere length is regulated by a number of associated proteins through a number of different signaling pathways. The determinants of telomere length were studied using whole blood samples from 287 twin pairs aged 73 to 95 years. Structural equation models revealed that a model including additive genetic effects and non- shared environment was the best fitting model and that telomere length was moderately heritable, with an estimate that was sensitive to the telomere length standardization procedure. Sex-specific analyses showed lower heritability in males, although not statistically significant, which is in line with our earlier finding of a sex difference in telomere dynamics among the elderly and oldest-old.

Type
Articles
Information
Twin Research and Human Genetics , Volume 8 , Issue 5 , 01 October 2005 , pp. 433 - 439
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2005