The gender-related alterations in the telomere lenght and subtelomeric methylation in patients with Parkinson’s disease

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.