scholarly journals Stress exposure in early post-natal life reduces telomere length: an experimental demonstration in a long-lived seabird

2014 ◽  
Vol 281 (1782) ◽  
pp. 20133151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine A. Herborn ◽  
Britt J. Heidinger ◽  
Winnie Boner ◽  
Jose C. Noguera ◽  
Aileen Adam ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Telomere Length ◽  
Immune Cells ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Life History Stage ◽  
Experimental Demonstration ◽  
Stress Exposure ◽  
Telomere Attrition ◽  
Delayed Effects ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Telomere Loss

Exposure to stressors early in life is associated with faster ageing and reduced longevity. One important mechanism that could underlie these late life effects is increased telomere loss. Telomere length in early post-natal life is an important predictor of subsequent lifespan, but the factors underpinning its variability are poorly understood. Recent human studies have linked stress exposure to increased telomere loss. These studies have of necessity been non-experimental and are consequently subjected to several confounding factors; also, being based on leucocyte populations, where cell composition is variable and some telomere restoration can occur, the extent to which these effects extend beyond the immune system has been questioned. In this study, we experimentally manipulated stress exposure early in post-natal life in nestling European shags ( Phalacrocorax aristotelis ) in the wild and examined the effect on telomere length in erythrocytes. Our results show that greater stress exposure during early post-natal life increases telomere loss at this life-history stage, and that such an effect is not confined to immune cells. The delayed effects of increased telomere attrition in early life could therefore give rise to a ‘time bomb’ that reduces longevity in the absence of any obvious phenotypic consequences early in life.

scholarly journals An experimental demonstration that early-life competitive disadvantage accelerates telomere loss

2015 ◽  
Vol 282 (1798) ◽  
pp. 20141610 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Nettle ◽  
Pat Monaghan ◽  
Robert Gillespie ◽  
Ben Brilot ◽  
Thomas Bedford ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Early Life ◽  
Plasma Lipid ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Adult Survival ◽  
Early Life Adversity ◽  
Telomere Attrition ◽  
Delayed Effects ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Competitive Disadvantage ◽  
Telomere Loss

Adverse experiences in early life can exert powerful delayed effects on adult survival and health. Telomere attrition is a potentially important mechanism in such effects. One source of early-life adversity is the stress caused by competitive disadvantage. Although previous avian experiments suggest that competitive disadvantage may accelerate telomere attrition, they do not clearly isolate the effects of competitive disadvantage from other sources of variation. Here, we present data from an experiment in European starlings ( Sturnus vulgaris ) that used cross-fostering to expose siblings to divergent early experience. Birds were assigned either to competitive advantage (being larger than their brood competitors) or competitive disadvantage (being smaller than their brood competitors) between days 3 and 12 post-hatching. Disadvantage did not affect weight gain, but it increased telomere attrition, leading to shorter telomere length in disadvantaged birds by day 12. There were no effects of disadvantage on oxidative damage as measured by plasma lipid peroxidation. We thus found strong evidence that early-life competitive disadvantage can accelerate telomere loss. This could lead to faster age-related deterioration and poorer health in later life.

scholarly journals Interplays between pre- and post-natal environments affect early-life mortality, body mass and telomere dynamics in the wild

2020 ◽  
Vol 224 (1) ◽  
pp. jeb231290
Author(s):  
Tiia Kärkkäinen ◽  
Pauliina Teerikorpi ◽  
Wiebke Schuett ◽  
Antoine Stier ◽  
Toni Laaksonen
Keyword(s):  
Telomere Length ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Maternal Investment ◽  
Interactive Effects ◽  
Hatching Order ◽  
Hatching Synchrony ◽  
Asynchronous Hatching ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Developmental Conditions ◽  
Telomere Dynamics

ABSTRACTEarly-life conditions are crucial determinants of phenotype and fitness. The effects of pre- and post-natal conditions on fitness prospects have been widely studied but their interactive effects have received less attention. In birds, asynchronous hatching creates challenging developmental conditions for the last-hatched chicks, but differential allocation in last-laid eggs might help to compensate this initial handicap. The relative importance and potential interaction between pre- and post-hatching developmental conditions for different fitness components remains mostly unknown. We manipulated hatching order in wild pied flycatchers (Ficedula hypoleuca), creating three groups: natural asynchrony (last-laid eggs hatching last), reversed asynchrony (last-laid eggs hatching first) and hatching synchrony (all eggs hatching at once). We examined the effects of these manipulations on early-life survival, growth and telomere length, a potential cellular biomarker of fitness prospects. Mortality was mostly affected by hatching order, with last-hatched chicks being more likely to die. Early-life telomere dynamics and growth were influenced by the interplays between laying and hatching order. Last-laid but first-hatched chicks were heavier but had shorter telomeres 5 days after hatching than their siblings, indicating rapid early growth with potential adverse consequences on telomere length. Synchronous chicks did not suffer any apparent cost of hatching synchronously. Impaired phenotypes only occurred when reversing the natural hatching order (i.e. developmental mismatch), suggesting that maternal investment in last-laid eggs might indeed counterbalance the initial handicap of last-hatched chicks. Our experimental study thus highlights that potential interplays between pre- and post-natal environments are likely to shape fitness prospects in the wild.

scholarly journals Telomere length is highly heritable and independent of growth rate manipulated by temperature in field crickets

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jelle Boonekamp ◽  
Rolando Rodríguez-Muñoz ◽  
Paul Hopwood ◽  
Erica Zuidersma ◽  
Ellis Mulder ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Growth Rate ◽  
Telomere Length ◽  
Temperature Treatment ◽  
Field Cricket ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Human Infants ◽  
Apparent Lack ◽  
Telomere Attrition ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Telomere Biology

AbstractMany organisms are capable of growing faster than they do. Restrained growth rate has functionally been explained by negative effects on lifespan of accelerated growth. However, the underlying mechanisms remain elusive. Telomere attrition has been proposed as a causal agent and has been studied in endothermic vertebrates. We established that telomeres exist as chromosomal-ends in a model insect, the field cricket, using terminal restriction fragment and Bal 31 methods. Telomeres comprised TTAGGn repeats of 38kb on average, more than four times longer than the telomeres of human infants. Bal 31 assays confirmed that telomeric repeats were located at the chromosome-ends. We tested whether rapid growth is achieved at the expense of telomere length by comparing crickets reared at 23°C with their siblings reared at 28°C, which grew three times faster. Surprisingly, neither temperature treatment nor age affected average telomere length. Concomitantly, the broad sense heritability of telomere length was remarkably high at ~100%. Despite high heritability, the evolvability (a mean standardized measure of genetic variance) was low relative to that of body mass. We discuss the different interpretations of these scaling methods in the context of telomere evolution. It is clear that some important features of vertebrate telomere biology are evident in an insect species dating back to the Triassic, but also that there are some striking differences. The apparent lack of an effect of growth rate and the total number of cell divisions on telomere length is puzzling, suggesting that telomere length could be actively maintained during the growth phase. Whether such maintenance of telomere length is adaptive remains elusive and requires further study investigating the links with fitness in the wild.

scholarly journals Life-long telomere attrition predicts health and lifespan in a large mammal

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luise A. Seeker ◽  
Sarah L. Underwood ◽  
Rachael V. Wilbourn ◽  
Jennifer Fairlie ◽  
Hannah Froy ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Telomere Length ◽  
Milk Production ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Adult Life ◽  
First Year ◽  
Adult Health ◽  
Telomere Attrition ◽  
Research Population ◽  
Commercial Farms ◽  
First Year Of Life

AbstractTelomere length measured in blood cells is predictive of subsequent adult health and survival across a range of vertebrate species. However, we currently do not know whether such associations result from among-individual differences in telomere length determined genetically or by environmental factors early in life, or from differences in the rate of telomere attrition over the course of life. Here, we measured relative leukocyte telomere length (RLTL) multiple times across the entire lifespan of dairy cattle in a research population that is closely monitored for health and milk production and where individuals are only culled in response to health issues and less due to poor milk production than on purely commercial farms. Our results clearly show that the average amount of telomere attrition over an individual’s life, not their average or early life telomere length predicted when an individual was culled. Within-individual telomere length attrition could reflect environmental or physiological insults which may accumulate to predict individual health-span. We also show that animals with more telomere attrition in their first year of life were culled at a younger age, indicating that early life stressors may have a prolonged effect on adult life.

scholarly journals Longer telomeres during early life predict higher lifetime reproductive success in females but not males

2021 ◽  
Vol 288 (1951) ◽  
pp. 20210560
Author(s):  
Britt J. Heidinger ◽  
Aurelia C. Kucera ◽  
Jeff D. Kittilson ◽  
David F. Westneat
Keyword(s):  
Reproductive Success ◽  
Telomere Length ◽  
Dna Sequences ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Passer Domesticus ◽  
Population Variation ◽  
Lifetime Reproductive Success ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Telomere Loss ◽  
Telomere Dynamics

The mechanisms that contribute to variation in lifetime reproductive success are not well understood. One possibility is that telomeres, conserved DNA sequences at chromosome ends that often shorten with age and stress exposures, may reflect differences in vital processes or influence fitness. Telomere length often predicts longevity, but longevity is only one component of fitness and little is known about how lifetime reproductive success is related to telomere dynamics in wild populations. We examined the relationships between telomere length beginning in early life, telomere loss into adulthood and lifetime reproductive success in free-living house sparrows ( Passer domesticus ). We found that females, but not males, with longer telomeres during early life had higher lifetime reproductive success, owing to associations with longevity and not reproduction per year or attempt. Telomeres decreased with age in both sexes, but telomere loss was not associated with lifetime reproductive success. In this species, telomeres may reflect differences in quality or condition rather than the pace of life, but only in females. Sexually discordant selection on telomeres is expected to influence the stability and maintenance of within population variation in telomere dynamics and suggests that any role telomeres play in mediating life-history trade-offs may be sex specific.

scholarly journals TERC Variants Associated with Short Leukocyte Telomeres: Implication of Higher Early Life Leukocyte Telomere Attrition as Assessed by the Blood-and-Muscle Model

Cells ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 1360
Author(s):  
Simon Toupance ◽  
Maria G. Stathopoulou ◽  
Alexandros M. Petrelis ◽  
Vesna Gorenjak ◽  
Carlos Labat ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Telomere Length ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Telomere Maintenance ◽  
Muscle Model ◽  
Mendelian Randomisation ◽  
Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease ◽  
Nucleotide Polymorphisms ◽  
Telomere Attrition ◽  
Adult Age

Short leukocyte telomere length (LTL) is associated with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD). Mendelian randomisation studies, using single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with short LTL, infer a causal role of LTL in ASCVD. Recent results, using the blood-and-muscle model, indicate that higher early life LTL attrition, as estimated by the ratio between LTL and skeletal muscle telomere length (MTL), rather than short LTL at conception, as estimated by MTL, should be responsible of the ASCVD-LTL connection. We combined LTL and MTL measurements and SNPs profiling in 402 individuals to determine if 15 SNPs classically described as associated with short LTL at adult age were rather responsible for higher LTL attrition during early life than for shorter LTL at birth. Two of these SNPs (rs12696304 and rs10936599) were associated with LTL in our cohort (p = 0.027 and p = 0.025, respectively). These SNPs, both located on the TERC gene, were associated with the LTL/MTL ratio (p = 0.007 and p = 0.037, respectively), but not with MTL (p = 0.78 and p = 0.32 respectively). These results suggest that SNPs located on genes coding for telomere maintenance proteins may contribute to a higher LTL attrition during the highly replicative first years of life and have an impact later on the development of ASCVD.

scholarly journals Different epigenetic signatures of newborn telomere length and telomere attrition rate in early life

Aging ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Congrong Wang ◽  
Tim S. Nawrot ◽  
Charlotte Van Der Stukken ◽  
Dominika Tylus ◽  
Hanne Sleurs ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Telomere Length ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Attrition Rate ◽  
Telomere Attrition ◽  
Epigenetic Signatures

scholarly journals Why are there associations between telomere length and behaviour?

2018 ◽  
Vol 373 (1741) ◽  
pp. 20160438 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa Bateson ◽  
Daniel Nettle
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Telomere Length ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Smoking Behaviour ◽  
Theme Issue ◽  
Early Life Adversity ◽  
Telomere Attrition ◽  
Specific Behaviour ◽  
Telomere Dynamics

Individual differences in telomere length are associated with individual differences in behaviour in humans and birds. Within the human epidemiological literature this association is assumed to result from specific behaviour patterns causing changes in telomere dynamics. We argue that selective adoption—the hypothesis that individuals with short telomeres are more likely to adopt specific behaviours—is an alternative worthy of consideration. Selective adoption could occur either because telomere length directly affects behaviour or because behaviour and telomere length are both affected by a third variable, such as exposure to early-life adversity. We present differential predictions of the causation and selective adoption hypotheses and describe how these could be tested with longitudinal data on telomere length. Crucially, if behaviour is causal then it should be associated with differential rates of telomere attrition. Using smoking behaviour as an example, we show that the evidence that smoking accelerates the rate of telomere attrition within individuals is currently weak. We conclude that the selective adoption hypothesis for the association between behaviour and telomere length is both mechanistically plausible and, if anything, more compatible with existing empirical evidence than the hypothesis that behaviour is causal. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Understanding diversity in telomere dynamics’.

scholarly journals Telomere attrition rates are associated with weather conditions and predict productive lifespan in dairy cattle

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Luise A. Seeker ◽  
Sarah L. Underwood ◽  
Rachael V. Wilbourn ◽  
Jennifer Dorrens ◽  
Hannah Froy ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Dairy Cattle ◽  
Telomere Length ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Animal Health ◽  
Weather Conditions ◽  
Adult Health ◽  
Attrition Rates ◽  
Telomere Attrition ◽  
Research Population

AbstractTelomere length is predictive of adult health and survival across vertebrate species. However, we currently do not know whether such associations result from among-individual differences in telomere length determined genetically or by early-life environmental conditions, or from differences in the rate of telomere attrition over the course of life that might be affected by environmental conditions. Here, we measured relative leukocyte telomere length (RLTL) multiple times across the entire lifespan of dairy cattle in a research population that is closely monitored for health and milk production and where individuals are predominantly culled in response to health issues. Animals varied in their change in RLTL between subsequent measurements and RLTL shortened more during early life and following hotter summers which are known to cause heat stress in dairy cows. The average amount of telomere attrition calculated over multiple repeat samples of individuals predicted a shorter productive lifespan, suggesting a link between telomere loss and health. TL attrition was a better predictor of when an animal was culled than their average TL or the previously for this population reported significant TL at the age of 1 year. Our present results support the hypothesis that TL is a flexible trait that is affected by environmental factors and that telomere attrition is linked to animal health and survival traits. Change in telomere length may represent a useful biomarker in animal welfare studies.

Prey tell: what quillback rockfish early life history traits reveal about their survival in encounters with juvenile coho salmon

2020 ◽  
Vol 650 ◽  
pp. 7-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
HW Fennie ◽  
S Sponaugle ◽  
EA Daly ◽  
RD Brodeur
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Life History Traits ◽  
Direct Evidence ◽  
Coho Salmon ◽  
Larval Fish ◽  
Early Life History ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Otolith Microstructure Analysis ◽  
Pelagic Juvenile

Predation is a major source of mortality in the early life stages of fishes and a driving force in shaping fish populations. Theoretical, modeling, and laboratory studies have generated hypotheses that larval fish size, age, growth rate, and development rate affect their susceptibility to predation. Empirical data on predator selection in the wild are challenging to obtain, and most selective mortality studies must repeatedly sample populations of survivors to indirectly examine survivorship. While valuable on a population scale, these approaches can obscure selection by particular predators. In May 2018, along the coast of Washington, USA, we simultaneously collected juvenile quillback rockfish Sebastes maliger from both the environment and the stomachs of juvenile coho salmon Oncorhynchus kisutch. We used otolith microstructure analysis to examine whether juvenile coho salmon were age-, size-, and/or growth-selective predators of juvenile quillback rockfish. Our results indicate that juvenile rockfish consumed by salmon were significantly smaller, slower growing at capture, and younger than surviving (unconsumed) juvenile rockfish, providing direct evidence that juvenile coho salmon are selective predators on juvenile quillback rockfish. These differences in early life history traits between consumed and surviving rockfish are related to timing of parturition and the environmental conditions larval rockfish experienced, suggesting that maternal effects may substantially influence survival at this stage. Our results demonstrate that variability in timing of parturition and sea surface temperature leads to tradeoffs in early life history traits between growth in the larval stage and survival when encountering predators in the pelagic juvenile stage.

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