Age-related telomere attrition causes aberrant gene expression in sub-telomeric regions

Xiao Dong; Shixiang Sun; Lei Zhang; Seungsoo Kim; Zhidong Tu; Cristina Montagna; Alexander Y Maslov; Yousin Suh; Tao Wang; Judith Campisi; Jan Vijg

doi:10.1111/acel.13357

Age-related telomere attrition causes aberrant gene expression in sub-telomeric regions

Aging Cell. 2021 Jun;20(6):e13357. doi: 10.1111/acel.13357. Epub 2021 May 21.

Authors

Xiao Dong^{1

2}, Shixiang Sun¹, Lei Zhang^{1

2}, Seungsoo Kim³, Zhidong Tu⁴, Cristina Montagna¹, Alexander Y Maslov^{1

5}, Yousin Suh^{3

6}, Tao Wang⁷, Judith Campisi⁸, Jan Vijg^{1

9}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Genetics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA.
² Institute on the Biology of Aging and Metabolism, Department of Genetics, Cell Biology and Development, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA.
³ Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, NY, USA.
⁴ Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences, Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology, Icahn School of Medicine Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA.
⁵ Laboratory of Applied Genomic Technologies, Voronezh State University of Engineering Technology, Voronezh, Russia.
⁶ Department of Genetics and Development, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, NY, USA.
⁷ Department of Epidemiology & Population Health, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA.
⁸ Buck Institute for Research on Aging, Novato, CA, USA.
⁹ School of Public Health, Center for Single-Cell Omics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.

Abstract

Telomere attrition has been proposed as a biomarker and causal factor in aging. In addition to causing cellular senescence and apoptosis, telomere shortening has been found to affect gene expression in subtelomeric regions. Here, we analyzed the distribution of age-related differentially expressed genes from the GTEx RNA sequencing database of 54 tissue types from 979 human subjects and found significantly more upregulated than downregulated genes in subtelomeric regions as compared to the genome-wide average. Our data demonstrate spatial relationships between telomeres and gene expression in aging.

Keywords: aging; gene expression; telomere shortening.

Publication types

Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adult
Aged
Aging
Cellular Senescence / genetics*
Female
Gene Expression / genetics*
Humans
Male
Middle Aged
Telomere / genetics*
Young Adult

Abstract

Publication types

MeSH terms

Grants and funding