Older paternal ages and grandpaternal ages at conception predict longer telomeres in human descendants

Dan T.A. Eisenberg*, Nanette R. Lee, Peter H. Rej, M. Geoffrey Hayes, Christopher W. Kuzawa

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

24 Scopus citations

Abstract

Telomere length (TL) declines with age in most human tissues, and shorter TL appears to accelerate senescence. By contrast, men’s sperm TL is positively correlated with age. Correspondingly, in humans, older paternal age at conception (PAC) predicts longer offspring TL. We have hypothesized that this PAC effect could persist across multiple generations, and thereby contribute to a transgenerational genetic plasticity that increases expenditures on somatic maintenance as the average age at reproduction is delayed within a lineage. Here, we examine TL data from 3282 humans together with PAC data across four generations. In this sample, the PAC effect is detectable in children and grandchildren. The PAC effect is transmitted through the matriline and patriline with similar strength and is characterized by a generational decay. PACs of more distant male ancestors were not significant predictors, although statistical power was limited in these analyses. Sensitivity analyses suggest that the PAC effect is linear, not moderated by offspring age, or maternal age, and is robust to controls for income, urbanicity and ancestry. These findings show that TL reflects the age at the reproduction of recent male matrilineal and patrilineal ancestors, with an effect that decays across generations.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number20190800
JournalProceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Volume286
Issue number1903
DOIs
StatePublished - May 29 2019

Keywords

  • Disposable soma
  • Epigenetics
  • Intergenerational inertia
  • Plasticity
  • Predictive adaptive response
  • Senescence

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
  • General Immunology and Microbiology
  • General Environmental Science
  • General Agricultural and Biological Sciences

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