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. 2021 Aug;11(8):e2255.
doi: 10.1002/brb3.2255. Epub 2021 Jun 21.

Telomere shortening in late-life depression: A potential marker of depression severity

Ana Paula Mendes-Silva  1 , Erica Leandro Marciano Vieira  1 , Gabriela Xavier  2   3 , Lucelia Scarabeli Silva Barroso  4 , Laiss Bertola  4 , Efrem Augusto Ribeiro Martins  4 , Elisa Macedo Brietzke  5   6 , Sintia Iole Nogueira Belangero  2   3 , Breno Satler Diniz  1   7   8   9
Affiliations

Telomere shortening in late-life depression: A potential marker of depression severity

Ana Paula Mendes-Silva et al. Brain Behav. 2021 Aug.

Abstract

Objectives: Telomeres are structures at the extremity of chromosomes that prevents genomic instability, and its shortening seems to be a hallmark of cellular aging. Past studies have shown contradictory results of telomere length (TL) in major depression, and are a few studies in late-life depression (LLD). This explores the association between TL as a molecular marker of aging and diagnosis of LLD, the severity of depressive symptoms, and cognitive performance in older adults.

Methods/design: We included 78 older adults (45 with LLD and 33 nondepressed controls, according to DSM-V criteria), aged 60-90 years. TL was measured in leukocytes by a quantitative polymerase chain reaction, determining the relative ratio (T/S) between the telomere region copy number (T) and a single copy gene (S), using a relative standard curve.

Results: TL was significantly shorter in the LLD compared with control participants (p = .039). Comparing groups through the severity of depressive symptoms, we found a negative correlation with the severity of depressive symptoms (Hamilton Depression Rating Scale-21, r = -0.325, p = .004) and medical burden (r = -0.271, p = .038). There was no significant correlation between TL and cognitive performance (Mattis Dementia Rating Scale, r = 0.152, p = .21).

Conclusions: We found that older adults with LLD have shorter telomere than healthy controls, especially those with a more severe depressive episode. Our findings suggest that shorter TL can be a marker of the severity of depressive episodes in older adults and indicate that these individuals may be at higher risk of age-associated adverse outcomes linked to depression.

Keywords: aging; cellular senescence; late-life depression; telomere length.

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Conflict of interest statement

All authors declared no conflicts of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Individuals with LLD have shorter telomere lengths than age‐matched control subjects. A box plot of the mean telomere length (T/S ratio) score for both groups is displayed. The y‐axis represents telomere length in (T/S ratio) score scale. The x‐axis represents the health control (HC) and late‐life depression (LLD) groups
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Mean telomere length (logT/S) for control subjects and LLD cases separated by depression severity (Hamilton Depression Rating Scale 21 items (HDRS‐21) scores). LLD—Severe depression group was significantly different from the control group (p value = .004)
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