RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Genetic Determinants of Telomere Length in African American Youth
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 310417
DO 10.1101/310417
A1 Andrew M. Zeiger
A1 Marquitta J. White
A1 Sam S. Oh
A1 Jonathan Witonsky
A1 Maria G. Contreras
A1 Pagé C. Goddard
A1 Eunice Y. Lee
A1 Kevin L. Keys
A1 Lesly-Anne Samedy
A1 Jennifer R. Liberto
A1 Angel C.Y. Mak
A1 Joaquín Magaña
A1 Oona Risse-Adams
A1 Celeste Eng
A1 Donglei Hu
A1 Scott Huntsman
A1 Sandra Salazar
A1 Adam Davis
A1 Kelley Meade
A1 Emerita Brigino-Buenaventura
A1 Michael A. LeNoir
A1 Harold J. Farber
A1 Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo
A1 Luisa N. Borrell
A1 Esteban G. Burchard
YR 2018
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/04/30/310417.abstract
AB Telomere length (TL) is associated with numerous disease states and is affected by genetic and environmental factors. However, TL has been mostly studied in adult populations of European or Asian ancestry. These studies have identified 34 TL-associated genetic variants recently used as genetic proxies for TL. The generalizability of these associations to pediatric populations and racially diverse populations, specifically of African ancestry, remains unclear. Furthermore, six novel variants associated with TL in a population of European children have been identified but not validated. We measured TL from whole blood samples of 492 healthy African American youth (children and adolescents between 8 and 20 years old) and performed the first genome-wide association study of TL in this population. We were unable to replicate neither the 34 reported genetic associations found in adults nor the six genetic associations found in European children. However, we discovered a novel genome-wide significant association between TL and rs1483898 on chromosome 14. Our results underscore the importance of examining these genetic associations with TL in diverse pediatric populations such as African Americans.