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Review
. 2012 Feb 1;730(1-2):75-84.
doi: 10.1016/j.mrfmmm.2011.06.009. Epub 2011 Jul 2.

Epidemiologic evidence for a role of telomere dysfunction in cancer etiology

Jennifer Prescott  1 , Ingrid M Wentzensen, Sharon A Savage, Immaculata De Vivo
Affiliations
Review

Epidemiologic evidence for a role of telomere dysfunction in cancer etiology

Jennifer Prescott et al. Mutat Res. .

Abstract

Telomeres, the dynamic nucleoprotein structures at the ends of linear chromosomes, maintain the genomic integrity of a cell. Telomere length shortens with age due to the incomplete replication of DNA ends with each cell division as well as damage incurred by oxidative stress. Patterns of telomere shortening, genomic instability, and telomerase expression in many cancer tissues compared to adjacent normal tissue implicate telomere crisis as a common crucial event in malignant transformation. In order to understand the role of telomere length in cancer etiology, most epidemiologic studies have measured average telomere length of peripheral blood or buccal cell DNA as a surrogate tissue biomarker of telomere dysfunction and cancer risk. In this review, we present the results from epidemiologic investigations conducted of telomere length and cancer risk. We note differences in reported associations based on study design, which may be due to biases intrinsic to retrospective studies. Finally, we conclude with study design considerations as future investigations are needed to elucidate the relationship between telomere length and a number of cancer sites.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest statement

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Telomere length associations with cancer risk from Retrospective case-control studies are presented comparing individuals in the shortest quantile to those in the longest quantile of telomere length. R was used to plot the study-specific, adjusted odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals. *Reported a significant association of longer telomere length with breast cancer risk; here we plot the inverse log odds ratios.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Telomere length associations with cancer risk from Prospective studies are presented comparing individuals in the shortest quantile to those in the longest quantile of telomere length. R was used to plot the study-specific, adjusted odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals. *Reported a significant association of longer telomere length with Non-Hodgkin lymphoma risk; here we plot the inverse log odds ratios.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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