SHORTENING OF TELOMERE LENGTH MAY BE ASSOCIATED WITH INFLAMMATORY CYTOKINES IN PATIENTS WITH BIPOLAR DISORDER

Abstract Background Bipolar disorder (BD) is hypothesized to be associated with accelerated biological aging. Telomere length (TL) is a biomarker of aging, and although TL reduces with each cell division, the shortening rate may be affected by allostatic load and inflammation. We hypothesized that BD patients may have TL shortening and levels of inflammatory markers may be associated with TL. Aims & Objectives We aimed to investigate whether there is a shortening of TL in BD patients and the association between TL shortening and inflammatory markers. Method BD patients and healthy controls (HC) were recruited. The leukocyte TL and plasma levels of cytokines [tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, C-reactive protein (CRP), interleukin (IL)-8, IL-6, IL-10, transforming growth factor (TGF)-β1] and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) was assessed. Results One hundred thirty-seven BD patients and 118 HC were enrolled. The TL was not significantly different between BD and HC after covarying for potential confounding factors (P =0.79). The TL was significantly negatively associated with age (β= -0.006, P<0.001). In addition, the log TNF-α levels were significantly negatively associated with the TL (β=-0.42, P=0.009), whether in BD (β=-1.59, P=0.02) or in HC (β=-0.34, P=0.05). Discussion & Conclusion We found a significant association between TNF-α levels and TL shortening in both BD patients and HC participants. However, TL shortening was not found in BD patients. Further enlargement of the sample size and controlling for the heterogeneity of BD participants will be needed.