Paternal age and telomere length in twins: the germ stem cell selection paradigm

Aging Cell

Jacob B. Hjelmborg⁵  Christine Dalgård²  Massimo Mangino³  Tim D. Spector³  Ulrich Halekoh⁵  Sören Möller⁵  Masayuki Kimura¹  Kent Horvath¹  Jeremy D. Kark⁴  Kaare Christensen⁵  Kirsten O. Kyvik⁶ 

[1] Center of Human Development and Aging, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Jersey Medical School, Newark, NJ, USA;Department of Environmental Medicine, Institute of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark;Department of Twin Research and Genetic Epidemiology, King's College London, London, UK;Epidemiology Unit, Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Public Health and Community Medicine, Jerusalem, Israel;Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Biodemography, Institute of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark;Institute of Regional Health Services Research, University of Southern Denmark and Odense Patient data Explorative Network (OPEN), Odense University Hospital, Odense, Denmark

关键词: telomeres;    twins;    father's age;    germ line;    heritability;    leukocytes;   

DOI  :  10.1111/acel.12334

来源: Wiley

【 摘 要 】

Summary

Telomere length, a highly heritable trait, is longer in offspring of older fathers. This perplexing feature has been attributed to the longer telomeres in sperm of older men and it might be an ‘epigenetic’ mechanism through which paternal age plays a role in telomere length regulation in humans. Based on two independent (discovery and replication) twin studies, comprising 889 twin pairs, we show an increase in the resemblance of leukocyte telomere length between dizygotic twins of older fathers, which is not seen in monozygotic twins. This phenomenon might result from a paternal age-dependent germ stem cell selection process, whereby the selected stem cells have longer telomeres, are more homogenous with respect to telomere length, and share resistance to aging.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2015 The Authors. Aging Cell published by the Anatomical Society and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.