• Yevgeniya Svyryd, Virginia Pascual-Ramos, Irazú Contreras-Yañez, Luís A Muñoz-Tellez, Leonora Luna-Muñoz, María A López-Hernández, Adolfo Aguayo-Gómez, and Osvaldo M Mutchinick.
• Department of Genetics and, Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubirán, Mexico City, Mexico.
• Rev Invest Clin. 2022 Jan 1; 74 (4): 202211202-211.

BackgroundRheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease characterized by chronic synovial joint inflammation, progressive disability, premature immune aging, and telomere length (TL) shortening.ObjectivesThe objective of the study was to study TL changes in patients at early disease onset and after follow-up.MethodsRelative leukocyte TL (rLTL) was measured by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) in 88 at-admission patients (AAP) with < 1 year of symptoms onset, self-compared after follow-up, and a reference group of sex- and age-matched healthy individuals. Correlations between rLTL percentage change after variable disease exposure time (DET) and clinical laboratory disease activity markers and treatments were assessed. Non-parametrical statistics were applied, considering < 0.05 p-value significant.ResultsThe median (p25, p75) rLTL was lower in patients after DET (0.61, 0.49-0.70) than in AAP (0.64, 0.50-0.77), p = 0.017. Furthermore, telomeres at early stages of RA were shorter than in the reference group (0.77, 0.59-0.92; p = 0.003). HLA-DRB1*04 allele carrier status did not significantly affect rLTL at an early stage and after follow-up. The patients' rLTL shortening was mainly associated with longer at-admission telomeres (OR 16.2, 95%CI: 3.5-74.4; p < 0.0001).ConclusionsAt follow-up, RA patients showed significantly shorter rLTL than AAP, particularly in those AAP with longer telomeres, disregarding disease activity and treatments, denoting an rLTL shortening effect influenced by age, DET, and native rLTL.Copyright: © 2022 Permanyer.

9 keywords...

hide…