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Comment
. 2015 Oct;44(5):1683-6.
doi: 10.1093/ije/dyv166. Epub 2015 Sep 24.

Commentary: The reliability of telomere length measurements

Simon Verhulst  1 , Ezra Susser  2 , Pam R Factor-Litvak  3 , Mirre J P Simons  4 , Athanase Benetos  5 , Troels Steenstrup  6 , Jeremy D Kark  7 , Abraham Aviv  8
Affiliations
Comment

Commentary: The reliability of telomere length measurements

Simon Verhulst et al. Int J Epidemiol. 2015 Oct.

Erratum in

  • Reproducibility of Telomere Length Assessment--An International Collaborative Study.
    Martin-Ruiz CM, Baird D, Roger L, Boukamp P, Krunic D, Cawthon R, Dokter MM, van der Harst P, Bekaert S, de Meyer T, Roos G, Svenson U, Codd V, Samani NJ, McGlynn L, Shiels PG, Pooley KA, Dunning AM, Cooper R, Wong A, Kingston A, von Zglinicki T. Martin-Ruiz CM, et al. Int J Epidemiol. 2015 Oct;44(5):1749-54. doi: 10.1093/ije/dyv171. Epub 2015 Sep 24. Int J Epidemiol. 2015. PMID: 26403809 Free PMC article. No abstract available.
No abstract available

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Coefficient of variation (CV%) between laboratories for SB/STELA vs qPCR plotted against telomere length. Telomere length was standardized per laboratory, dividing the results for all samples by the value obtained for sample G. The X-axis displays the average relative telomere length per sample per technique. Data from Table 2, round 1, in MR (SB/STELA R2 = 0.06, qPCR R2 = 0.54). Round 2 yielded similar results, except that the non-significant trend for SB/STELA was positive instead of negative.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Effect of inter-assay coefficient of variation (CV%) on sample size required for a statistical power of 0.9. Shown on the left axis are the multiples of the sample size needed compared with CV = 0% (i.e. perfect reliability). The required number of multiples is independent of effect size. Shown on the right axis is the N required for the specific case of demonstrating a difference of 0.15 kb (approximate gender effect) with power 0.9. Calculations are based on a two-sample t-test and power analyses were carried out using G-Power, assuming an LTL average ± SD of 6.9 ± 0.65 kb. Estimates depend on the sample size used to calculate the CV due to the downward bias in SD estimates, and this bias decreases rapidly with sample size over which each CV is calculated. Upper line: CV based on sample standard deviation estimated from duplicate measurements (maximum bias). Lower line: CV based on population SD, i.e. unbiased.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

Comment on

  • Reproducibility of telomere length assessment: an international collaborative study.
    Martin-Ruiz CM, Baird D, Roger L, Boukamp P, Krunic D, Cawthon R, Dokter MM, van der Harst P, Bekaert S, de Meyer T, Roos G, Svenson U, Codd V, Samani NJ, McGlynn L, Shiels PG, Pooley KA, Dunning AM, Cooper R, Wong A, Kingston A, von Zglinicki T. Martin-Ruiz CM, et al. Int J Epidemiol. 2015 Oct;44(5):1673-83. doi: 10.1093/ije/dyu191. Epub 2014 Sep 19. Int J Epidemiol. 2015. PMID: 25239152 Free PMC article.

References

    1. Hunt SC, Kark JD, Aviv A. The association between shortened leukocyte telomere length and cardio-metabolic outcomes. Circ Cardiovasc Genet 2015;8:4–7. - PubMed
    1. Boonekamp JJ, Simons MJP, Hemerik L, Verhulst S. Telomere length behaves as biomarker of somatic redundancy rather than biological age. Aging Cell 2013;12:330–32. - PubMed
    1. Martin-Ruiz CM, Baird D, Roger L, et al. Reproducibility of telomere length assessment: an international collaborative study. Int J Epidemiol 2015;44:1673–83 - PMC - PubMed
    1. Aviv A, Hunt SC, Lin J, Cao X, Kimura M, Blackburn E. Impartial comparative analysis of measurement of leukocyte telomere length/DNA content by Southern blots and qPCR. Nucleic Acids Res 2011;39:e134. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Steenstrup T, Hjelmborg JV, Kark JD, Christensen K, Aviv A. The telomere lengthening conundrum - artifact or biology? Nucleic Acids Res 2013;41:e131. - PMC - PubMed