Maternal opioid use is reflected on leukocyte telomere length of male newborns

Abstract

Opioid use accelerates normal aging in adults that raises a question on whether it may trans-generationally affect aging and aging biomarkers in the offspring of users as well? In the present research, we investigated the relative telomere length in umbilical cord blood of newborns born to opioid consuming mothers compared to normal controls. Telomere length shortening is a known biomarker of aging and aging related diseases. Its measure at birth or early in life is considered as a predictor of individual health in adulthood. Here, we performed a case-control study to investigate whether maternal opioid use affects newborns relative telomere length (RTL). 57 mother-newborn dyads were included in this study, 30 neonates with opioid using mothers (OM), and 27 with not-opioid using mothers (NOM)). RTL was measured in leukocyte cells genomic DNA using real-time PCR. The correlation of maternal opioid use with neonates telomer length was assessed using logistic regression analysis. The results displayed a significant association between odds ratio of long RTL and maternal opioid use when sensitivity analysis was performed by neonate sex; where the data indicates significantly increased odds ratio of long leukocyte RTL in association with maternal opioid use in male neonates only. Further work is necessary to assess this association in larger samples and test the potential underlying mechanisms for this observation.

Umbilical cord blood thyroid hormones are inversely related to telomere length and mitochondrial DNA copy number

“…Further investigation is required to assess whether the difference between cord blood cells and the placenta may be the reason for the difference in our results. Research has shown that environmental factors such as exposure to pollution, tobacco smoking and drug consumption 35 during pregnancy impacts the telomere length and the mitochondrial DNA copy number at birth 36 – 40 .…”

Developmental Brain Injury and Social Determinants of Health: Opportunities to Combine Preclinical Models for Mechanistic Insights into Recovery

“…While not toxins per se, intrauterine exposure to substances with abuse liability (alcohol, nicotine, opioids) is readily modeled in rodents and can be combined with postnatal models [85][86][87]. Clinically, perinatal exposure of infants to opioids (including methadone) can have profound and lasting negative effects on the central nervous system via altered inflammatory and neuroinflammatory trajectories [88,89]. This negative neuroinflammatory impact is also seen in rodent models of perinatal opioid exposure [90][91][92].…”