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. 2021 Jan 19;10(1):137.
doi: 10.3390/antiox10010137.

Assessment of the Telomere Length and Its Effect on the Symptomatology of Parkinson's Disease

Tina Levstek  1 , Sara Redenšek  1 , Maja Trošt  2 , Vita Dolžan  1 , Katarina Trebušak Podkrajšek  1   3
Affiliations

Assessment of the Telomere Length and Its Effect on the Symptomatology of Parkinson's Disease

Tina Levstek et al. Antioxidants (Basel). .

Abstract

Telomeres, which are repetitive sequences that cap the end of the chromosomes, shorten with each cell division. Besides cellular aging, there are several other factors that influence telomere length (TL), in particular, oxidative stress and inflammation, which play an important role in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative brain diseases including Parkinson's disease (PD). So far, the majority of studies have not demonstrated a significant difference in TL between PD patients and healthy individuals. However, studies investigating the effect of TL on the symptomatology and disease progression of PD are scarce, and thus, warranted. We analyzed TL of peripheral blood cells in a sample of 204 PD patients without concomitant autoimmune diseases and analyzed its association with several PD related phenotypes. Monochrome multiplex quantitative PCR (mmqPCR) was used to determine relative TL given as a ratio of the amount of DNA between the telomere and albumin as the housekeeping gene. We found a significant difference in the relative TL between PD patients with and without dementia, where shorter TL presented higher risk for dementia (p = 0.024). However, the correlation was not significant after adjustment for clinical factors (p = 0.509). We found no correlations between TLs and the dose of dopaminergic therapy when the analysis was adjusted for genetic variability in inflammatory or oxidative factors. In addition, TL influenced time to onset of motor complications after levodopa treatment initiation (p = 0.0134), but the association did not remain significant after adjustment for age at inclusion and disease duration (p = 0.0781). Based on the results of our study we conclude that TL contributes to certain PD-related phenotypes, although it may not have a major role in directing the course of the disease. Nevertheless, this expends currently limited knowledge regarding the association of the telomere attrition and the disease severity or motor complications in Parkinson's disease.

Keywords: Parkinson’s disease; dementia; levodopa treatment; telomere attrition; telomere length.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Relative TL in relation to dementia. Median relative TL of a cohort with and without dementia (range between the 1st and 3rd quartile).
Figure 2
Figure 2
The effect of TL on the current levodopa efficient dose (LED). The blue line presents the regression trendline with the grey area presenting the 95% CI.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Survival curve for PD patients with and without motor fluctuations after levodopa treatment initiation.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Survival curve for PD patients with and without dyskinesia after levodopa treatment initiation.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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