Evaluation Of POT1 And Telomere Length On Atherosclerosis

Objective:To evaluation the change of telomere length in peripheral white blood cells of patients with atherosclerosis.Biological age may be distinct from chronological age.Mean telomeres lengths provide an assessment of biological age,such as shorter telomeres indicating increased biological age.We investigated whether patients with atherosclerosis had shorter leukocyte telomeres length.Methods:One hundred persons excluding acute and chronic inflammation,cancer and autoimmune disease were entered this study and divided to two groups:atherosclerosis group(AS group) and control group.Two groups were matehed in age and gender.After checking the purity of DNA,we did southern-blotting using DIG-labeled telomere probe.At last we scanned the image and used a software to measure the telomere length.We also extracted hPOT1 used with method of western-blotting from peripheral blood of one hundred subjects.At last we scanned the image and used a software to measure the expression of hPOT1.Results:The telomere length in peripheral white blood cells of AS group was obviously shorter than that of.control group(mean±SD:7.48±1.14Kb vs 8.18±0.73Kb,P＜0.001). The telomere length in peripheral white blood cells of both group and their ages have negative relation(r=一0.441,P=0.02;r=一0.491,P＜0.001).The difference in mean TRF length between cases and controls was not accounted for by other coronary risk factors. Compared with patients in the highest quartile for telomere length,the risk of atherosclerosis was increased between 2.8-and 3.2-fold(P＜0.0001) in patients with shorter than average telomeres,the expression of hPOT1 in peripheral blood of patients with atherosclerosis was obviously higher than that of the control(t=3.84,p=0.001).Conclusion:Comparing with control group,the telomere length in white blood cells of AS group was obviously shorter.This result suggested that there were increasing leucocyte tumover in the patients with atheroselerosis.There was found that increasing expression of hPOT1 in peripheral blood of patients with atherosclerosis.