Publications and Research

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-5-2018

Abstract

Telomere length (TL) is associated with numerous disease states and is affected by genetic and environmental factors. However, TL has been mostly studied in adult populations of European or Asian ancestry. These studies have identified 34 TL-associated genetic variants recently used as genetic proxies for TL. The generalizability of these associations to pediatric populations and racially diverse populations, specifically of African ancestry, remains unclear. Furthermore, six novel variants associated with TL in a population of European children have been identified but not validated. We measured TL from whole blood samples of 492 healthy African American youth (children and adolescents between 8 and 20 years old) and performed the first genome-wide association study of TL in this population. We were unable to replicate neither the 34 reported genetic associations found in adults nor the six genetic associations found in European children. However, we discovered a novel genome-wide significant association between TL and rs1483898 on chromosome 14. Our results underscore the importance of examining genetic associations with TL in diverse pediatric populations such as African Americans.

Comments

This article was originally published in Scientific Reports, available at DOI:10.1038/s41598-018-31238-3.

Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.