Aging-related alterations of subtelomeric methylation in sarcoidosis patients

Telomeres in somatic cells become shorter with aging, and the shortening is accelerated by pathophysiological conditions. Telomere shortening can be influenced by subtelomeric DNA methylation. The telomere length and subtelomeric methylation status in peripheral leukocytes were compared in healthy controls and sarcoidosis patients. The sarcoidosis patients revealed shorter telomeres and a faster attrition of telomere shortening in comparison with healthy controls. Both healthy controls and sarcoidosis patients showed that long telomeres (>9.4 kb) decrease and short telomeres (<4.4 kb) increase with aging, accompanying relative increases of long telomeres with subtelomeric hypermethylation and short telomeres with subtelomeric hypomethylation. This suggested that the aging-related telomere shortening is associated with the surrounding subtelomeric hypomethylation. Furthermore, sarcoidosis patients showed this alteration of the subtelomeric methylation earlier than controls (in their 60s or later). This altered subtelomeric hypomethylation may correspond to the accelerated telomere shortening in sarcoidosis. This also means that the subtelomeric hypomethylation can be also influenced by certain disease conditions.