Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.
Section of Genetic Medicine, Department of Medicine, Institute for Genomics and Systems Biology, Center for Data Intensive Science, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.
Science. 2020 Sep 11;369(6509). doi: 10.1126/science.aaz6876.
Telomere shortening is a hallmark of aging. Telomere length (TL) in blood cells has been studied extensively as a biomarker of human aging and disease; however, little is known regarding variability in TL in nonblood, disease-relevant tissue types. Here, we characterize variability in TLs from 6391 tissue samples, representing >20 tissue types and 952 individuals from the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) project. We describe differences across tissue types, positive correlation among tissue types, and associations with age and ancestry. We show that genetic variation affects TL in multiple tissue types and that TL may mediate the effect of age on gene expression. Our results provide the foundational knowledge regarding TL in healthy tissues that is needed to interpret epidemiological studies of TL and human health.
端粒缩短是衰老的一个标志。作为人类衰老和疾病的生物标志物，血液细胞中的端粒长度 (TL) 已经得到了广泛的研究；然而，对于非血液、与疾病相关的组织类型中的 TL 变异性知之甚少。在这里，我们描述了来自 6391 个组织样本的 TL 变异性，这些样本代表了来自 Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) 项目的 20 多种组织类型和 952 个人。我们描述了不同组织类型之间的差异、组织类型之间的正相关关系，以及与年龄和祖先的关联。我们表明，遗传变异会影响多个组织类型中的 TL，并且 TL 可能介导年龄对基因表达的影响。我们的结果提供了关于健康组织中 TL 的基础知识，这对于解释 TL 和人类健康的流行病学研究是必要的。
