Abstract

Telomere shortening has been associated with multiple age-related diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and dementia. However, the biological mechanisms responsible for these associations remain largely unknown. In order to gain insight into the metabolic processes driving the association of leukocyte telomere length (LTL) with age-related diseases, we investigated the association between LTL and serum metabolite levels in 7,853 individuals from seven independent cohorts. LTL was determined by quantitative polymerase chain reaction and the levels of 131 serum metabolites were measured with mass spectrometry in biological samples from the same blood draw. With partial correlation analysis, we identified six metabolites that were significantly associated with LTL after adjustment for multiple testing: lysophosphatidylcholine acyl C17:0 (lysoPC a C17:0, p-value = 7.1 × 10−6), methionine (p-value = 9.2 × 10−5), tyrosine (p-value = 2.1 × 10−4), phosphatidylcholine diacyl C32:1 (PC aa C32:1, p-value = 2.4 × 10−4), hydroxypropionylcarnitine (C3-OH, p-value = 2.6 × 10−4), and phosphatidylcholine acyl-alkyl C38:4 (PC ae C38:4, p-value = 9.0 × 10−4). Pathway analysis showed that the three phosphatidylcholines and methionine are involved in homocysteine metabolism and we found supporting evidence for an association of lipid metabolism with LTL. In conclusion, we found longer LTL associated with higher levels of lysoPC a C17:0 and PC ae C38:4, and with lower levels of methionine, tyrosine, PC aa C32:1, and C3-OH. These metabolites have been implicated in inflammation, oxidative stress, homocysteine metabolism, and in cardiovascular disease and diabetes, two major drivers of morbidity and mortality.

Details

Title
Metabolomics reveals a link between homocysteine and lipid metabolism and leukocyte telomere length: the ENGAGE consortium
Author
van der Spek, Ashley 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Broer, Linda 2 ; Draisma, Harmen H M 3 ; Pool, René 4   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Albrecht, Eva 5 ; Beekman, Marian 6   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Mangino, Massimo 7   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Raag, Mait 8 ; Nyholt, Dale R 9 ; Dharuri, Harish K 10 ; Codd, Veryan 11 ; Amin, Najaf 1 ; Eco J C de Geus 12 ; Deelen, Joris 13   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Demirkan, Ayse 14 ; Yet, Idil 15 ; Fischer, Krista 16 ; Haller, Toomas 17 ; Henders, Anjali K 18 ; Isaacs, Aaron 19   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Medland, Sarah E 20 ; Montgomery, Grant W 20 ; Mooijaart, Simon P 21 ; Strauch, Konstantin 22 ; H Eka D Suchiman 6   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Vaarhorst, Anika A M 6 ; Diana van Heemst 21 ; Wang-Sattler, Rui 23 ; Whitfield, John B 20 ; Willemsen, Gonneke 12 ; Wright, Margaret J 24 ; Martin, Nicholas G 20 ; Samani, Nilesh J 11 ; Metspalu, Andres 17 ; P Eline Slagboom 6 ; Spector, Tim D 25 ; Boomsma, Dorret I 4 ; van Duijn, Cornelia M 26 ; Gieger, Christian 5 

 Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands 
 Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands 
 Department of Biological Psychology, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Amsterdam Public Health research institute, Amsterdam University Medical Centers, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Section of Genomics of Common Disease, Imperial College London, Burlington Danes Building Room E301, Du Cane Road, London, UK 
 Department of Biological Psychology, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Amsterdam Public Health research institute, Amsterdam University Medical Centers, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; BBMRI-NL: Infrastructure for the Application of Metabolomics Technology in Epidemiology (RP4), Utrecht, The Netherlands 
 Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München - German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany 
 Molecular Epidemiology, Department of Biomedical Data Sciences, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands 
 Department of Twin Research and Genetic Epidemiology, King’s College London, London, UK; NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Foundation Trust, London, UK 
 Institute of Family Medicine and Public Health, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia 
 School of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Health, Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia 
10  Department of Human Genetics, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands 
11  Department of Cardiovascular Sciences, University of Leicester and NIHR Leicester Biomedical Research Centre, Glenfield Hospital, Leicester, UK 
12  Department of Biological Psychology, VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Amsterdam Public Health research institute, Amsterdam University Medical Centers, Amsterdam, The Netherlands 
13  Molecular Epidemiology, Department of Biomedical Data Sciences, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands; Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing, Cologne, Germany 
14  Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Department of Human Genetics, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands 
15  Department of Twin Research and Genetic Epidemiology, King’s College London, London, UK; Department of Bioinformatics, Institute of Health Sciences, Hacettepe University, 06100, Ankara, Turkey 
16  Estonian Genome Center, Institute of Genomics, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia; Institute of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia 
17  Estonian Genome Center, Institute of Genomics, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia 
18  The Institute for Molecular Biosciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia 
19  CARIM School for Cardiovascular Diseases, Maastricht Centre for Systems Biology (MaCSBio), and Department of Biochemistry, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands 
20  QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Brisbane, Australia 
21  Department of Gerontology and Geriatrics, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands 
22  Institute of Genetic Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München - German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany; Chair of Genetic Epidemiology, IBE, Faculty of Medicine, LMU Munich, Germany 
23  Research Unit of Molecular Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum München - German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany 
24  Queensland Brain Institute, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia 
25  Department of Twin Research and Genetic Epidemiology, King’s College London, London, UK 
26  Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research, Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands; Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK 
Pages
1-12
Publication year
2019
Publication date
Aug 2019
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20452322
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2272204844
Copyright
© 2019. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.