Evidence for Biological Age Acceleration and Telomere Shortening in COVID-19 Survivors.
Int J Mol Sci
; 22(11)2021 Jun 07.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-34200325
ABSTRACT
The SARS-CoV-2 infection determines the COVID-19 syndrome characterized, in the worst cases, by severe respiratory distress, pulmonary and cardiac fibrosis, inflammatory cytokine release, and immunosuppression. This condition has led to the death of about 2.15% of the total infected world population so far. Among survivors, the presence of the so-called persistent post-COVID-19 syndrome (PPCS) is a common finding. In COVID-19 survivors, PPCS presents one or more symptoms fatigue, dyspnea, memory loss, sleep disorders, and difficulty concentrating. In this study, a cohort of 117 COVID-19 survivors (post-COVID-19) and 144 non-infected volunteers (COVID-19-free) was analyzed using pyrosequencing of defined CpG islands previously identified as suitable for biological age determination. The results show a consistent biological age increase in the post-COVID-19 population, determining a DeltaAge acceleration of 10.45 ± 7.29 years (+5.25 years above the range of normality) compared with 3.68 ± 8.17 years for the COVID-19-free population (p < 0.0001). A significant telomere shortening parallels this finding in the post-COVID-19 cohort compared with COVID-19-free subjects (p < 0.0001). Additionally, ACE2 expression was decreased in post-COVID-19 patients, compared with the COVID-19-free population, while DPP-4 did not change. In light of these observations, we hypothesize that some epigenetic alterations are associated with the post-COVID-19 condition, particularly in younger patients (< 60 years).
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Aging
/
Telomere
/
CpG Islands
/
Telomere Shortening
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Etiology_studies
/
Prognostic_studies
/
Risk_factors_studies
Limits:
Adult
/
Aged
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
/
Middle aged
Language:
En
Journal:
Int J Mol Sci
Year:
2021
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Italy