The gender-related alterationsin the telomere length andsubtelomeric methylationstatus in patients withParkinson’s disease

The aim of this study was to determine whether Parkinson’s disease affects somatic telomeric features. Some recent reports have shown that telomere length is not changed in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD). 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 com-parison to age-matched controls. The telomer-ic parameters of the peripheral leukocytes of Parkinson’s disease outpatients and normal healthy volunteers, including family members of the participating outpatients were deter-mined by analyzing the densitometries of the Southern blot results obtained with methyla-tion-sensitive and insensitive isoschizomers. The Parkinson’s patients had gender related-differences in the alterations of their telomere length and subtelomeric status. Only female patients had significant Parkinson’s disease-associated telomeric and subtelomeric changes. The female Parkinson’s patients bore proportionally decreased long telomeres (>9.4 Kb) and less methylation of short telom-eres (<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 suggest-ed that the aging-related telomeric and sub-telomeric 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