Genetic Determinants of Telomere Length in African American Youth

Abstract

40Telomere length (TL) is associated with numerous disease states and is affected by genetic and 41 environmental factors. However, TL has been mostly studied in adult populations of European or 42 Asian ancestry. These studies have identified 34 TL-associated genetic variants recently used as 43 genetic proxies for TL. The generalizability of these associations to pediatric populations and 44 racially diverse populations, specifically of African ancestry, remains unclear. Furthermore, six 45 novel variants associated with TL in a population of European children have been identified but 46 not validated. We measured TL from whole blood samples of 492 healthy African American 47