Research Paper Volume 12, Issue 15 pp 15196—15221

Figure 1. Cross-sectional univariate associations between leukocyte telomere length (LTL), whole blood mitochondrial DNA (WB mtDNA) content, and age. Among 612 participants, (A) LTL declines with age (R²=0.17, Slope=-0.03, Pearson’s P<0.0001); as does (B) WB mtDNA content (R²=0.03, Slope=-0.57, P<0.0001). Both measures also decline within each HIV subgroup (all p<0.01). Linear regressions of HIV-, HIV+ undetectable plasma viral load (pVL), and HIV+ with detectable pVL participants are shown in blue, orange, and magenta, respectively. Differences between slopes were tested and showed that (A) LTL declines faster among HIV+ detectable pVL participants than in HIV- controls. (C) No detectable relationship exists between LTL and WB mtDNA content (P=0.138). The shaded area indicates the 95% prediction interval. Coefficients of determination (R²) are shown.