Research Paper Volume 12, Issue 12 pp 12376—12392
Leukocyte telomere length is inversely associated with arterial wave reflection in 566 normotensive and never-treated hypertensive subjects
- 1 Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology and Finnish Cardiovascular Research Center Tampere, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland
- 2 Department of Internal Medicine, Central Hospital of Central Finland, Jyväskylä, Finland
- 3 Minerva Institute for Medical Research, Biomedicum U2 Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
- 4 Department of Clinical Physiology, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland
- 5 Department of Internal Medicine, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland
- 6 Department of Clinical Chemistry, Fimlab Laboratories Ltd, Tampere, Finland
Received: February 17, 2020 Accepted: May 27, 2020 Published: June 23, 2020
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.103459How to Cite
Copyright © 2020 Honkonen et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Telomeres are short segments in chromosome ends, the length of which is reduced during cell lifecycles. We examined the association of mean leukocyte telomere length (LTL) and short telomere proportion (STP) with hemodynamic variables in normotensive and never-treated hypertensive volunteers (n=566, 19-72 years). STP and mean LTL were determined using Southern blotting, and supine hemodynamics recorded using continuous tonometric pulse wave analysis and whole-body impedance cardiography. The analyses were adjusted for age, body mass index (BMI), alcohol use, smoking, plasma chemistry, and estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR). In univariate analyses, mean LTL and STP both correlated with age, BMI, eGFR, aortic blood pressure, augmentation index, and pulse wave velocity (p<0.05 for all). Mean LTL also correlated with systemic vascular resistance (p<0.05). In linear regression analyses of all hemodynamic variables, mean LTL was only an independent explanatory factor for augmentation index (Beta -0.006, p=0.032), while STP was not an explanatory factor for any of the hemodynamic variables, in contrast to age, BMI and several cardiovascular risk factors. To conclude, augmentation index was predominantly related with chronological aging, but also with mean LTL, suggesting that this variable of central wave reflection is a modest marker of vascular biological aging.