Journal
PLOS GENETICS
Volume 4, Issue 2, Pages -Publisher
PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.0040037
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Funding
- NHLBI NIH HHS [U01 HL067897, U01 HL056567, U01 HL67896, U01 HL56566, U01 HL067896, U01 HL67897, U01 HL067893, U01 HL56564, U01 HL56569, U01 HL56565, U01 HL067902, U01 HL67901, U01 HL56567, U01 HL067899, U01 HL067895, U01 HL67894, U01 HL 67893, U01 HL67895, N0HC25195, U01 HL56568, U01 HL67902, U01 HL067894, U01 HL56563, U01 HL67900, U01 HL067898, U01 HL067900, U01 HL67898, U01 HL67899, U01 HL067901] Funding Source: Medline
- NIA NIH HHS [P01-AG0876, R01-AG020132, R01 AG021593, R01 AG020132, R01-AG021593] Funding Source: Medline
- Wellcome Trust [074951] Funding Source: Medline
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Leukocyte telomere length (LTL) is a complex genetic trait. It shortens with age and is associated with a host of aging-related disorders. Recent studies have observed that offspring of older fathers have longer LTLs. We explored the relation between paternal age and offspring's LTLs in 4 different cohorts. Moreover, we examined the potential cause of the paternal age on offspring's LTL by delineating telomere parameters in sperm donors. We measured LTL by Southern blots in Caucasian men and women (n=3365), aged 18-94 years, from the Offspring of the Framingham Heart Study (Framingham Offspring), the NHLBI Family Heart Study (NHLBI-Heart), the Longitudinal Study of Aging Danish Twins (Danish Twins), and the UK Adult Twin Registry (UK Twins). Using Southern blots, Q-FISH, and flow-FISH, we also measured telomere parameters in sperm from 46 young (< 30 years) and older (> 50 years) donors. Paternal age had an independent effect, expressed by a longer LTL in males of the Framingham Offspring and Danish Twins, males and females of the NHLBI-Heart, and females of UK Twins. For every additional year of paternal age, LTL in offspring increased at a magnitude ranging from half to more than twice of the annual attrition in LTL with age. Moreover, sperm telomere length analyses were compatible with the emergence in older men of a subset of sperm with elongated telomeres. Paternal age exerts a considerable effect on the offspring's LTL, a phenomenon which might relate to telomere elongation in sperm from older men. The implications of this effect deserve detailed study.
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