The lueokocyte telomere length, single nucleotide polymorphisms nearTERCgene and risk of COPD

Chronic obstructive disease (COPD) is characterized by irreversible airflow obstruction and is associated with chronic local and systemic inflammation and oxidative stress. The enhanced oxidative stress and inflammation have been reported affect telomere length (TL). Furthermore, a number of SNPs at loci encoding the main components of the telomerase genes, TERT and TERC have been shown to correlate with TL. We aimed to explore the leukocyte TL and genotypes for single nucleotide polymorphisms, rs12696304 (C>G) and rs10936599 (C>T) near TERC in COPD cases and controls using q-PCR technologies. Successful assessment of TL was performed for 91 patients and 88 controls. The patients had shorter TL (17919.36±1203.01 bp) compared to controls (21 271.48±1891.36 bp) although not significant (p=0.137). The TL did not associate with the gender, age, spirometric indexes but correlated positively with the smoking habits (packs-years,Rho=0.422, p=0.032) and tended to correlate negatively with BMI (Rho= -0.215, p=0.076) in the controls, but not in COPD patients. The genotype frequencies of the SNPs rs12696304 and rs10936599 were compared between patients and controls and the odds ratios for developing COPD were calculated. The carriers of the common homozygous genotype of the SNPs had higher risk for COPD, compared to carriers of the variants alleles (rs12696304 CG+GG vs CC; OR=1.39, 95% CI:0.95-2.04, p=0.098 and for rs10936599 CT+TT vs CC OR=1.50, 95% CI:1.03-2.19, p=0.044). There was no association between the SNP genotypes and TL. In summary, our results suggest that COPD patients may have shorter TL, and rs12696304 and rs10936599 near TERC may affect the risk of COPD independently of TL.