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Review
. 2022 Jul 12;13(7):1234.
doi: 10.3390/genes13071234.

Leukocyte Telomere Length as a Molecular Biomarker of Coronary Heart Disease

Olga V Zimnitskaya  1 , Marina M Petrova  1 , Natalia V Lareva  2 , Marina S Cherniaeva  3 , Mustafa Al-Zamil  4 , Anastasia E Ivanova  5 , Natalia A Shnayder  1   5
Affiliations
Review

Leukocyte Telomere Length as a Molecular Biomarker of Coronary Heart Disease

Olga V Zimnitskaya et al. Genes (Basel). .

Abstract

Background: This work is a review of preclinical and clinical studies of the role of telomeres and telomerase in the development and progression of coronary heart disease (CHD).

Materials and methods: A search for full-text publications (articles, reviews, meta-analyses, Cochrane reviews, and clinical cases) in English and Russian was carried out in the databases PubMed, Oxford University Press, Scopus, Web of Science, Springer, and E-library electronic library using keywords and their combinations. The search depth is 11 years (2010-2021).

Results: The review suggests that the relative leukocyte telomere length (LTL) is associated with the development of socially significant and widespread cardiovascular diseases such as CHD and essential hypertension. At the same time, the interests of researchers are mainly focused on the study of the relative LTL in CHD.

Conclusions: Despite the scientific and clinical significance of the analyzed studies of the relative length of human LTL as a biological marker of cardiovascular diseases, their implementation in real clinical practice is difficult due to differences in the design and methodology of the analyzed studies, as well as differences in the samples by gender, age, race, and ethnicity. The authors believe that clinical studies of the role of the relative length of leukocyte telomeres in adult patients with coronary heart disease are the most promising and require large multicenter studies with a unified design and methodology.

Keywords: acute coronary syndrome; acute myocardial infarction; adults; coronary atherosclerosis; early vascular aging; molecular predictors; people; stable coronary heart disease; telomere length.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The relationship between the telomere length of endotheliocytes and leukocytes.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Flow chart diagram visualizing the database searches and the number of publications identified, screened, and the final full texts included in the present systematic review. Reason 1—there is no primary data on relative LTL in the article. Reason 2—the method of measuring relative LTL was carried out using an alternative method to the Ca. thon R. M. method. Reason 3—review and meta-analysis.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Median Relative Leukocyte Telomere Length in Patients with Coronary Heart Disease and Acute Myocardial Infarction Compared to Healthy Controls: AMI—acute myocardial infarction; CVDs—cardiovascular disease; CAD—coronary artery disease; LTL—leukocyte telomere length (CU—conventional units).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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