Telomere length: role of the effect of stress on psychiatric disorders vulnerability and on its transgenerational transmission

Telomeres are repeated sequences of DNA-protein complexes located at the ends of chromosomes and are involved in preventing chromosome fusion and maintaining genome stability. Telomere shortening is a physiological process that occurs in each cell division and is considered a marker of cellular aging. Indeed insufficient telomere length has been observed after exposure to stress (Tyrka et al., 2010), and associated with an increased risk for age-related chronic diseases (Haycock et al., 2014). Preliminary data have reported that individuals exposed to childhood trauma have, in adult age, shorter telomeres. Telomere may be shortened also from excessive attrition due to decreased telomerase activity. Indeed, telomerase can counteract by adding TTAGGG repeats to the chromosome ends. In this project I have measured in a cellular model of stress, fibroblast cell cultures exposed to deprivation of nutriments and oxygen, telomere length. Moreover, I have performed similar analyses in the brain of animals exposed to a paradigm of prenatal stress. Moreover as shorter telomere length has been found in newborns whose mothers were exposed to stress during pregnancy (Entringer et al., 2013) my further interest is to assess telomere length in individuals at high risk to develop psychiatric disease but that haven’t yet experienced it. Therefore I‘m now assessing whether alterations in telomere length observed in the brain of an animal model of early life stress can be observed also in the blood of individuals assessed for exposure to childhood trauma. From these combined data obtained from cellular, animal and human studies, I will identify the role of telomere in the inheritance of the vulnerability risk to develop stress related psychopathologies.