Shorter telomere lengths in patients with severe COVID-19 disease

Sánchez-Vázquez, Raúl; Guío-Carrión, Ana; Zapatero-Gaviria, Antonio; Martínez, Paula; Blasco, Marı́a A.

doi:10.18632/aging.202463

Cited by 94 publications

(89 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…This raises the question whether the telomere length merely reflects age and age-related diseases or can independently predict COVID-19 clinical course. Our regression model indicates that LTL can be an independent factor for the severity of the disease, conclusion reinforced by recent studies [ [23] , [24] , [25] ].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

“…Despite this, the other methodologies that measure telomere length (usually based on fluoroscopy, labeled probes or cytometry) also have their limitations, especially on the high cost/time per assay [ 27 ]. In addition, studies reinforce a great correlation between the telomere length measured by different techniques, which reinforces that Q-PCR may be the technique of choice for telomere length in clinical use [ 24 ]. For example, in a scenario where other clinical parameters and comorbidities may leave doubts about whether the patient should be observed or recover at home, collecting a blood sample and performing a simple PCR assay may be useful.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 74%

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Shorter leukocyte telomere length is associated with severity of COVID-19 infection.

Santos¹,

Pimenta²,

Viana³

et al. 2021

Biochemistry and Biophysics Reports

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The infection by COVID-19 is a serious global public health problem. An efficient way to improve this disease's clinical management would be to characterize patients at higher risk of progressing to critically severe infection using prognostic biomarkers. The telomere length could be used for this purpose. Telomeres are responsible for controlling the number of maximum cell divisions. The telomere length is a biomarker of aging and several diseases. We aimed to compare leukocyte telomere length (LTL) between patients without COVID-19 and patients with different clinical severity of the infection. Were included 53 patients who underwent SARS-CoV-2 PCR divided in four groups. The first group was composed by patients with a negative diagnosis for COVID-19 (n = 12). The other three groups consisted of patients with a confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 divided according to the severity of the disease: mild (n = 15), moderate (n = 17) and severe (n = 9). The LTL was determined by Q-PCR. The severe group had the shortest LTL, followed by the moderate group. The negative and mild groups showed no differences. There is an increase of patients with hypertension (p = 0.0099) and diabetes (p = 0.0067) in moderate and severe groups. Severe group was composed by older patients in comparison with the other three groups (p = 0.0083). Regarding sex, there was no significant difference between groups (p = 0.6279). In an ordinal regression model, only LTL and diabetes were significantly associated with disease severity. Shorter telomere length was significantly associated with the severity of COVID-19 infection, which can be useful as a biomarker or to better understand the SARS-CoV-2 pathophysiology.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 74%

Shorter leukocyte telomere length is associated with severity of COVID-19 infection.

Santos¹,

Pimenta²,

Viana³

et al. 2021

Biochemistry and Biophysics Reports

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…An accelerated TL shortening is a parameter associated with an increased risk of developing cardiovascular diseases and other disorders [ 48 ]. In COVID-19, patients bearing shorter telomeres in their peripheral leukocytes have been proposed to be at risk of worse prognoses [ 49 ]. In the post-COVID-19 group analyzed here, the average TL was 3.03 ± 2.39 kb, compared with 10.67 ± 11.69 kb in the control group ( p < 0.0001).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence for Biological Age Acceleration and Telomere Shortening in COVID-19 Survivors

Mongelli

Barbi

zamperla

et al. 2021

IJMS

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The SARS-CoV-2 infection determines the COVID-19 syndrome characterized, in the worst cases, by severe respiratory distress, pulmonary and cardiac fibrosis, inflammatory cytokine release, and immunosuppression. This condition has led to the death of about 2.15% of the total infected world population so far. Among survivors, the presence of the so-called persistent post-COVID-19 syndrome (PPCS) is a common finding. In COVID-19 survivors, PPCS presents one or more symptoms: fatigue, dyspnea, memory loss, sleep disorders, and difficulty concentrating. In this study, a cohort of 117 COVID-19 survivors (post-COVID-19) and 144 non-infected volunteers (COVID-19-free) was analyzed using pyrosequencing of defined CpG islands previously identified as suitable for biological age determination. The results show a consistent biological age increase in the post-COVID-19 population, determining a DeltaAge acceleration of 10.45 ± 7.29 years (+5.25 years above the range of normality) compared with 3.68 ± 8.17 years for the COVID-19-free population (p < 0.0001). A significant telomere shortening parallels this finding in the post-COVID-19 cohort compared with COVID-19-free subjects (p < 0.0001). Additionally, ACE2 expression was decreased in post-COVID-19 patients, compared with the COVID-19-free population, while DPP-4 did not change. In light of these observations, we hypothesize that some epigenetic alterations are associated with the post-COVID-19 condition, particularly in younger patients (< 60 years).

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“…Importantly, long-term lockdown and loneliness may cause people to eat foods known to cause obesity [43], which is associated with an increased risk of inflammation and mental health problems [44,45]. Therefore, phenomena like Quarantine 15 may have detrimental effects on people's BMI, overall health, and, by extension, their ability to overcome COVID-19 [46][47][48].…”

Section: Pandemic-induced Weight Gain and Covid-19mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Obesity Paradox Predicts the Second Wave of COVID-19 to Be Severe in Western Countries

Krams

Jõers

Luoto

et al. 2021

IJERPH

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While COVID-19 infection and mortality rates are soaring in Western countries, Southeast Asian countries have successfully avoided the second wave of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic despite high population density. We provide a biochemical hypothesis for the connection between low COVID-19 incidence, mortality rates, and high visceral adiposity in Southeast Asian populations. The SARS-CoV-2 virus uses angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) as a gateway into the human body. Although the highest expression levels of ACE2 are found in people’s visceral adipose tissue in Southeast Asia, this does not necessarily make them vulnerable to COVID-19. Hypothetically, high levels of visceral adiposity cause systemic inflammation, thus decreasing the ACE2 amount on the surface of both visceral adipocytes and alveolar epithelial type 2 cells in the lungs. Extra weight gained during the pandemic is expected to increase visceral adipose tissue in Southeast Asians, further decreasing the ACE2 pool. In contrast, weight gain can increase local inflammation in fat depots in Western people, leading to worse COVID-related outcomes. Because of the biological mechanisms associated with fat accumulation, inflammation, and their differential expression in Southeast Asian and Western populations, the second wave of the pandemic may be more severe in Western countries, while Southeast Asians may benefit from their higher visceral fat depots.

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Shorter telomere lengths in patients with severe COVID-19 disease

Cited by 94 publications

References 51 publications

Shorter leukocyte telomere length is associated with severity of COVID-19 infection.

Shorter leukocyte telomere length is associated with severity of COVID-19 infection.

Evidence for Biological Age Acceleration and Telomere Shortening in COVID-19 Survivors

The Obesity Paradox Predicts the Second Wave of COVID-19 to Be Severe in Western Countries

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