Short peripheral blood leukocyte telomere length in rheumatoid arthritis-interstitial lung disease
Tracy J. Doyle, Pierre‐Antoine Juge, Anna L. Peljto, Seoyeon Lee, Avram Walts, Anthony J. Esposito, Sergio Poli, Ritu R. Gill, Hiroto Hatabu, Mizuki Nishino, Paul F. Dellaripa, Michael E. Weinblatt, Nancy A. Shadick, M. Kristen Demoruelle, Jeffrey A. Sparks, Iván O. Rosas, Benjamin Granger, Kevin D. Deane, Bruno Crestani, Paul J. Wolters, Philippe Dieudé, Joyce Lee
Abstract
Shortened telomere lengths (TLs) can be caused by single nucleotide polymorphisms and loss-of-function mutations in telomere-related genes (TRG), as well as ageing and lifestyle factors such as smoking. Our objective was to determine if shortened TL is associated with interstitial lung disease (ILD) in individuals with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). This is the largest study to demonstrate and replicate that shortened peripheral blood leukocytes-TL is associated with ILD in patients with RA compared with RA without ILD in a multinational cohort, and short PBL-TL was associated with baseline disease severity in RA-ILD as measured by forced vital capacity percent predicted.