Abstract
Patients with major psychiatric disorders mainly schizophrenia (SZ) and major depression (MD) and with bipolar disorder (BD) are prone to diseases associated with aging. They reveal tendency to have shorter natural life span than the general population. Telomeres, composed of a repetitive DNA sequence and associated proteins, are located at both ends of each chromosome and play an important role in preserving information of cell genome. In somatic cells, telomeres progressively shorten with each cell division which is an indicator of aging and reduction of body’s ability to regenerate in response to various damaging factors. Chronic oxidative stress that accompanies metabolic changes in the course of SZ, MD, and BD can accelerate telomere shortening. Cross-sectional studies on telomere length in blood leukocytes proved their shortening in patients with these major psychiatric disorders versus matched controls. One study described the inverse association of leukocyte telomere length with circulating markers of oxidative stress in MD patients. No studies on this topic that involved SZ and BD groups have been executed so far. Postmortem brain samples revealed distinct features of oxidative stress while no shortening of telomere length was found in SZ, MD, and BD. No results of prospective longitudinal studies devoted to analyze the rate of telomere shortening and intensity of oxidative stress in the course of SZ, MD, and BD have been published so far. Therefore, whether these major psychiatric disorders can accelerate telomere erosion (via mechanisms dependent on oxidative stress) in blood leukocytes and other somatic cells remains to be investigated.
Keywords
- Bipolar Disorder
- Major Depression
- Telomere Length
- Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
- Coronary Heart Disease Patient
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- ALT:
-
Alternative lengthening of telomeres
- ApoE2 :
-
Apolipoprotein E2
- BD:
-
Bipolar disorder
- BD II:
-
Bipolar disorder type II
- BD I:
-
Bipolar disorder type I
- BMI:
-
Body mass index
- CHD:
-
Coronary heart disease
- COPD:
-
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
- DST:
-
Dexamethasone
- ECT:
-
Electroconvulsive therapy
- ELISA:
-
Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay
- GST mu:
-
Glutathione S-transferase
- HAM-A:
-
Hamilton anxiety score
- HAM-D:
-
Hamilton depression score
- MAOA:
-
Monoamine oxidase A
- MD:
-
Major depression
- NYHA:
-
New York Heart Association
- PCR:
-
Polymerase chain reaction
- PCR-RFLP:
-
PCR – restriction fragment length polymorphism
- PTSD:
-
Posttraumatic stress disorder
- ROS:
-
Reactive oxygen species
- STMN1:
-
Encoding stathmin
- SZ:
-
Schizophrenia
- TERT:
-
Encoding the catalytic subunit of the telomerase
- TL:
-
Telomere length
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Acknowledgment
This work was partially supported by a grant from the EU Regional Development Fund through the Polish Innovation Economy Operational Program, contract N. UDAPOIG. 01.03.01-10-109/08-00.
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Nowak, D. (2015). Telomere Length in Major Psychiatric Disorders: Is There Any Relationship Between Telomere Length and Oxidative Stress?. In: Dietrich-Muszalska, A., Chauhan, V., Grignon, S. (eds) Studies on Psychiatric Disorders. Oxidative Stress in Applied Basic Research and Clinical Practice. Humana Press, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-0440-2_21
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