%0 Journal Article
%T The gender-related alterations in the telomere lenght and subtelomeric methylation in patients with Parkinson¡¯s disease
%A Toyoki Maeda
%A Jing-Zhi Guan
%A Masamichi Koyanagi
%A Naoki Makino
%J Ageing Research
%D 2012
%I 
%R 10.4081/ar.2012.e9
%X The aim of this study was to determine whether Parkinson¡¯s disease (PD) affects somatic telomeric features. Some recent reports have shown that telomere length is not changed in patients with Parkinson¡¯s disease. In this study, we more closely evaluated possible Parkinson¡¯s disease-associated telomeric alterations than has been done previously. We analyzed the telomere length distribution, the subtelomeric methylation status, and their gender-related differences, as well as the mean telomere length in PD patients in comparison to age-matched controls. The telomeric parameters of the peripheral leukocytes of Parkinson¡¯s disease outpatients and normal healthy volunteers, including family members of the participating outpatients were determined by analyzing the densitometries of the Southern blot results obtained with methylation- sensitive and insensitive isoschizomers. The Parkinson¡¯s patients had gender relateddifferences in the alterations of their telomere length and subtelomeric status. Only female patients had significant Parkinson¡¯s diseaseassociated telomeric and subtelomeric changes. The female Parkinson¡¯s patients bore proportionally decreased long telomeres (>9.4 Kb) and less methylation of short telomeres (<4.4 Kb) in comparison with healthy controls, both of which have been regarded to be a part of aging-associated telomeric and subtelomeric changes. These results suggested that the aging-related telomeric and subtelomeric changes are accelerated specifically in female Parkinson¡¯s patients, and that genomic DNA is more strongly affected by Parkinson¡¯s disease in females than in males.
%K Parkinson¡¯s disease
%K DNA methylation
%K subtelomere
%K telomere
%K gender.
%U http://www.pagepress.org/journals/index.php/ar/article/view/3638