Telomere length measurement by a novel Luminex-based assay: a blinded comparison to Southern blot

Telomere length (TL) is a potential biomarker of aging and age-related disease risk. We recently published a novel Luminex-based method for high-throughput, low-cost TL measurement. Here we describe a blinded comparison of the Luminex method to Southern blot, the most precise TL measurement method. Luminex and Southern blot measurements for the same 50 DNA samples were taken in two independent laboratories; each sample was measured twice, several months apart. The inter-assay CV for Luminex ranged from 5.5 to 9.1 (depending on CV estimation method), and Southern blot CV from 1.0 to 1.7. Both measures were inversely associated with age. The correlation between the repeated measurements was 0.66 for Luminex and 0.97 for Southern blot. The correlation between Southern blot and Luminex was 0.65 in round 1 and 0.75 in round 2, and the relationship showed no evidence of non-linearity. Our results demonstrate that the Luminex assay is a valid and reproducible method for high-throughput TL measurement. The Luminex assay involves no DNA amplification, which may make Luminex an attractive alternative to PCR-based TL measurement.