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. 2014 Mar;6(3):176-86.
doi: 10.18632/aging.100644.

Metabolic profiles of biological aging in American Indians: the Strong Heart Family Study

Jinying Zhao  1 , Yun Zhu, Karan Uppal, ViLinh T Tran, Tianwei Yu, Jue Lin, Tet Matsuguchi, Elizabeth Blackburn, Dean Jones, Elisa T Lee, Barbara V Howard  2
Affiliations

Metabolic profiles of biological aging in American Indians: the Strong Heart Family Study

Jinying Zhao et al. Aging (Albany NY). 2014 Mar.

Abstract

Short telomere length, a marker of biological aging, has been associated with age-related metabolic disorders. Telomere attrition induces profound metabolic dysfunction in animal models, but no study has examined the metabolome of telomeric aging in human. Here we studied 423 apparently healthy American Indians participating in the Strong Family Heart Study. Leukocyte telomere length (LTL) was measured by qPCR. Metabolites in fasting plasma were detected by untargeted LC/MS. Associations of LTL with each metabolite and their combined effects were examined using generalized estimating equation adjusting for chronological age and other aging-related factors. Multiple testing was corrected using the q-value method (q<0.05). Of the 1,364 distinct m/z features detected, nineteen metabolites in the classes of glycerophosphoethanolamines, glycerophosphocholines, glycerolipids, bile acids, isoprenoids, fatty amides, or L-carnitine ester were significantly associated with LTL, independent of chronological age and other aging-related factors. Participants with longer (top tertile) and shorter (bottom tertile) LTL were clearly separated into distinct groups using a multi-marker score comprising of all these metabolites, suggesting that these newly detected metabolites could be novel metabolic markers of biological aging. This is the first study to interrogate the human metabolome of telomeric aging. Our results provide initial evidence for a metabolic control of LTL and may reveal previously undescribed new roles of various lipids in the aging process.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no conflict of interest exists.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Manhattan plot (−log10 p vs metabolic feature) showing metabolites using raw p values obtained from multivariate GEE regression. Metabolites significantly associated with LTL are highlighted in red dots at the q-value level of 0.05.
Figure 2
Figure 2
sPLS-DA plot. Participants whose LTL in the top tertile of LTL distribution and those in the bottom tertile are classified into two distinct groups using the multi-marker score comprising of all 19 metabolites significantly associated with LTL in the multivariate GEE model.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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