The first investigation into leukocyte telomere length measurement in Iranian healthy individuals

Telomeres are repetitive sequences at the end of eukaryotic chromosomes which are responsible for genomic integrity. As a person ages, telomere length decreases due to increased number of cell divisions. Telomere length is a good marker of biological age and has a reverse correlation with chronological age in different ethnicities. Oxidative stresses, life style, sex, diet, and psychosocial status can affect the length of telomeres. Due to the importance of biological age in compare to chronological age in epidemiology and studying the age related diseases, relative leukocyte telomere length in Iranian healthy individuals was measured by real time PCR experiment for the first time. In this assay telomere amplification is compared to a single copy gene amplification (36B4). Twenty eight healthy Iranian women and 56 healthy Iranian men (30-80 years) from Tehran and Sabzevar were selected for this study. They were not related, and lived at least ten years in their own city (Tehran or Sabzevar). They were nonsmokers and had no sign of chronic infections or cancer. Complete clinical examination was done for each individual. We found a strong reverse correlation between chronological age p-value <= 0.05) just like other ethnicities. Further and length of telomeres in Iranian individuals (R² = 0.9258 analysis based on the different sex groups, and also different cities will be done in near future. These results showed that measuring telomere length by qPCR, is a good tool for estimating the biological age of Iranian population.