title: Comparison of relative telomere length measured in aortic tissue and leukocytes in patients with end stage heart failure.
abstract: Telomeres are repetitive non-coding DNA sequences on the ends of eukaryotic chromosomes. Relative leukocyte telomere length (LrTL) is considered to reflect biological ageing and fitness. Therefore, we examined whether LrTL would reflect rTL in aortic tissue (ArTL) and whether it could be used as a marker of biological heart age.
  
  
  
  We analysed telomere length in aortic and leukocyte samples from 73 heart recipients (63 males, 10 females; age 52.2±11.7 years). Relative telomere length was measured using a quantitative PCR-based method.
  
  
  
  Neither LrTL nor ArTL correlated significantly with the age of heart recipients. Mean ArTL was slightly shorter than LrTL (p=0.06) and there was a slight but significant inverse correlation between LrTL and ArTL (p=0.019).
  
  
  
  The age of patients with end stage heart failure was not associated with leukocyte or aortic telomere length. An inverse correlation between LrTL and ArTL suggests that LrTL is unlikely to be an important predictor of biological ageing in these patients.
authors.affiliation: Center for Experimental Medicine, Institute for Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Prague, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Dana
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Dlouha
authors.affiliation: Cardiology Centre, Institute for Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Prague, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Jevgenija
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Vymetalova
authors.affiliation: Cardiology Centre, Institute for Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Prague, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Ivan
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Malek
authors.affiliation: Center for Experimental Medicine, Institute for Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Prague, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Jaroslav A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Hubacek
mesh_terms: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000235:genetics; D004247:DNA; D005260:Female; D006333:Heart Failure / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D007962:Leukocytes / Q000378:metabolism*; D008297:Male; D060888:Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction; D016615:Telomere / Q000235:genetics / Q000473:pathology*
chemical_list: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D004247:DNA