title: Leukocyte telomere length is associated with advanced age-related macular degeneration in the Han Chinese population.
abstract: Telomeres located at the ends of chromosomes are involved in genomic stability and play a key role in various cancers and age-related diseases. Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a late-onset, age-associated progressive neurodegenerative disease, which includes the geographic atrophy (GA) subtype and the choroidal neovascularization (CNV) subtype. To better understand how leukocyte telomere length (LTL) is related to AMD, we conducted an association study in 197 AMD patients and 259 healthy controls using the established quantitative PCR technique. Logistic regression was performed to evaluate the association of LTL and AMD with the age-adjusted ratio of the telomere length to the copy number of a single-copy gene (T/S). Notably, we found a significant association between AMD and LTL (OR=2.24; 95% CI=1.68-3.07; P=0.0001) after adjusting for age and sex. Furthermore, the results showed a strongly significant association between the GA subtype and the LTL (OR=4.81; 95% CI=3.15-7.82; P=0.0001) after adjusting for age and sex. Our findings provide evidence of the role that LTL plays in the pathological mechanisms of AMD, mainly in the GA subgroup but not the CNV subgroup.
authors.affiliation: Institutes of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, PR China.
authors.forename: Xiaoling
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Weng
authors.affiliation: Institutes of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, PR China.
authors.forename: Hong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Institute for Nutritional Sciences, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031, PR China.
authors.forename: Mengyuan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kan
authors.affiliation: Institutes of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, PR China.
authors.forename: Junyi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ye
authors.affiliation: Institute for Nutritional Sciences, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031, PR China.
authors.forename: Fatao
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Institute for Nutritional Sciences, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031, PR China.
authors.forename: Ting
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, 270 Dongan Road, Shanghai 200032, PR China.
authors.forename: Jiaying
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Deng
authors.affiliation: Institutes of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, PR China.
authors.forename: Yanfang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Tan
authors.affiliation: Institutes of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, PR China; Institute for Nutritional Sciences, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031, PR China; Bio-X Center, Key Laboratory for the Genetics of Developmental and Neuropsychiatric Disorders, Ministry of Education, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200030, PR China. Electronic address: helin@bio-x.cn.
authors.forename: Lin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: He
authors.affiliation: Institutes of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, PR China; Key Laboratory of Molecular Medicine, Ministry of Education, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Fudan University Shanghai Medical College, Shanghai 200032, PR China. Electronic address: superliuyun@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Yun
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000473:pathology / Q000502:physiology; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D042822:Genomic Instability / Q000502:physiology; D057092:Geographic Atrophy / Q000097:blood / Q000209:etiology / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D007962:Leukocytes / Q000502:physiology*; D008268:Macular Degeneration / Q000097:blood / Q000150:complications / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000473:pathology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D016615:Telomere / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: Age-related macular degeneration; Leukocyte telomere length