Krasnyenkov D. The length of telomeric regions of chromosomes in persons of different ages in normal condition and with metabolic disorders

Thesis for PhD degree (PhD) in specialty 03.00.15 – Genetics. SI «D. F. Chebotarev State Institute of Gerontology NAMS of Ukraine», Kyiv, 2021. The work is dedicated to the current problem of modern gerontology and genetics – assessment of the possibility of using leucocytes telomere length as a marker of biological age and evaluating factors, which could affect the association between leucocytes telomere length and age. In particular, the associations of leucocytes telomere length with age, biochemical and anthropometric parameters were analyzed. A significant association between leucocytes telomere length and pulse blood pressure has been shown. The findings suggest that impaired glucose tolerance can affect the association between leucocytes telomere length and age, and, after adequate correction this association may be increased significantly. The significant influence of the presence of metabolic syndrome on the probability of detecting short telomeres has been demonstrated: OR 3.0 (1.3-6.7), p=0.01. The method of neural networks proves the nonlinearity of the links between the metabolic syndrome, age, post-loading plasma glucose and the risk of having shorter telomeres. Absolute leucocytes telomere length for the studied cohort was calculated using whole genome sequencing of 10 reference samples (the lowest value was 2.75 kb, the largest value was 7.65 kb). Keywords: leucocytes telomere length, metabolic disorders, glucose tolerance, anthropometric parameters, fasting glucose, post-loading glucose, biological age.