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Rapid telomere erosion in schizophrenia

Molecular Psychiatry volume 13, pages 118–119 (2008)Cite this article

Telomeres are DNA repeats located at the ends of chromosomes, which progressively shorten with each cell division, thus serving as a molecular biomarker of physical aging in many organisms.1 Unexpectedly, telomere dysfunction was recently described in psychological stress2 and mood disorders.3 These intriguing findings suggest a molecular link between neural activity and aging, and raise the possibility that telomere maintenance may be impaired in other psychiatric disorders.

Here, we tested the hypothesis that telomere dynamics are altered in schizophrenia, a severe psychotic disorder. Subjects with schizophrenia were recruited from two cohorts, A and B, and were evaluated using structured interviews (Supplementary Methods). Telomere lengths were measured in a total of 51 individuals with schizophrenia, 52 unaffected, unrelated individuals, and 24 unaffected family members. Genomic DNA was isolated from peripheral blood lymphocytes and telomere length was measured using quantitative PCR.4 Significance was evaluated using analysis of variance (ANOVA) or analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) where necessary (Supplementary Methods). Since telomere lengths were quantitated in two independent laboratories, the results were analyzed separately, as described below.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (R01 MH070898 to BP; R01 NS047209 to H-TK; R21 MH071720 to LED; R01 MH044292 to Jurg Ott), the Stanley Research Medical Foundation (BP) and NARSAD.

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Author notes

  1. H-T Kao & B Porton

    Present address: 6Current Address: Department of Psychiatry, and Human Behavior Division of Biology and Medicine, Brown University, 171 Meeting Street, Room 187, Providence, RI 02912, USA,

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research, Orangeburg, NY, USA

    H-T Kao, L E DeLisi, H C Bertisch, P Li, M M Benedict, W M Greenberg & B Porton

  2. Department of Psychiatry, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA

    H-T Kao, L E DeLisi, H C Bertisch & B Porton

  3. Department of Human Genetics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

    R M Cawthon

  4. Laboratory of Statistical Genetics, Rockefeller University, New York, NY, USA

    F Ji

  5. Department of Genetics, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, USA

    D Gordon

Authors
  1. H-T Kao
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  2. R M Cawthon
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  3. L E DeLisi
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  4. H C Bertisch
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  5. F Ji
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  6. D Gordon
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  7. P Li
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  10. B Porton
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Correspondence to H-T Kao.

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Supplementary Information accompanies the paper on the Molecular Psychiatry website (http://www.nature.com/mp)

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Kao, HT., Cawthon, R., DeLisi, L. et al. Rapid telomere erosion in schizophrenia. Mol Psychiatry 13, 118–119 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.mp.4002105

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