Telomere Length and Reproductive Aging

Previous studies have suggested an association between rates of biological and reproductive aging. Short telomere length is a marker for cellular aging and may occur more frequently in women with poor oocyte quality and a history of premature reproductive senescence. Telomere length, however, has been both positively and negatively associated with different measures of reproductive aging in a number of studies. In the present study, the investigators tested the hypothesis that women with a history of premature reproductive aging have a shorter average telomere length than women without such a history. Telomere length in peripheral blood leukocytes was measured in 2 groups of women with evidence of premature reproductive aging: Group 1 (n = 34) was comprised of women with idiopathic premature ovarian failure (POF) who experienced menopause before 40 years of age and group 2 (n = 95) contained women with a history of recurrent miscarriage (RM). The 2 control groups were healthy women of reproductive age from the general population (C1, n = 108) and women who had had a healthy pregnancy after 37 years of age (C2, n = 46). Telomere length was measured using telomere-specific quantitative PCR. The age-adjusted mean telomere length was shorter among women in the RM group than among those in both control groups (8.46 kb for RM vs. 8.92 kb for C1, [P = 0.0004] and 9.11 kb for C2, [P = 0.02]), respectively. However, this effect was not specifically confined to women known to have experienced trisomic pregnancies. Contrary to expectation, women in the POF group did not have a shorter age-adjusted mean telomere length than those in the controls: Telomere length in POF women was longer compared to C1 (9.58 vs. 8.92 kb, P = 0.01) and not significantly different than C2. These findings suggest that both the opposing association of RM and POF with telomere length, and lack of an association of trisomic pregnancy―as manifestations of different types of reproductive aging―may result from unique physiological factors. The results require confirmation in studies with larger and more defined patient populations.