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. 2021 Jan 6;14(1):15.
doi: 10.1186/s12920-020-00857-z.

TERT rs2736100 and TERC rs16847897 genotypes moderate the association between internalizing mental disorders and accelerated telomere length attrition among HIV+ children and adolescents in Uganda

Allan Kalungi  1   2   3   4 , Eugene Kinyanda  5   6 , Jacqueline S Womersley  7   8 , Moses L Joloba  9   10 , Wilber Ssembajjwe  5   11 , Rebecca N Nsubuga  11 , Pontiano Kaleebu  12 , Jonathan Levin  13 , Martin Kidd  14 , Soraya Seedat  7   8 , Sian M J Hemmings  7   8
Affiliations

TERT rs2736100 and TERC rs16847897 genotypes moderate the association between internalizing mental disorders and accelerated telomere length attrition among HIV+ children and adolescents in Uganda

Allan Kalungi et al. BMC Med Genomics. .

Abstract

Background: Internalizing mental disorders (IMDs) (depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder) have been associated with accelerated telomere length (TL) attrition; however, this association has not been investigated in the context of genetic variation that has been found to influence TL. We have previously reported an association between IMDs and accelerated TL attrition among Ugandan HIV+ children and adolescents. This study investigated the moderating effects of selected single nucleotide polymorphisms in the telomerase reverse transcriptase gene (TERT) (rs2736100, rs7726159, rs10069690 and rs2853669) and the telomerase RNA component gene (TERC) (rs12696304, rs16847897 and rs10936599) on the association between IMDs and TL, among Ugandan HIV+ children (aged 5-11 years) and adolescents (aged 12-17 years).

Results: We found no significant interaction between IMDs as a group and any of the selected SNPs on TL at baseline. We observed significant interactions of IMDs with TERT rs2736100 (p = 0.007) and TERC rs16847897 (p = 0.012), respectively, on TL at 12 months.

Conclusions: TERT rs2736100 and TERC rs16847897 moderate the association between IMDs and TL among Ugandan HIV+ children and adolescents at 12 months. Understanding the nature of this association may shed light on the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying advanced cellular aging in IMDs.

Keywords: HIV+ children and adolescents; Internalizing mental disorders; TERC rs16847897; TERT rs2736100; Telomere length attrition; Uganda.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Mean TL between cases and controls by genotype for TERT rs2736100 and TERC rs16847897 at 12 months. For TERT rs2736100 mean TL was significantly different between cases and controls, but only in individuals with the GG genotype while for TERC rs16847897, mean TL was significantly different between cases and controls but only in individuals with CC genotype
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