ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2019
Older paternal ages and grandpaternal ages at conception predict longer telomeres in human descendants.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Telomere length analysis from minimally-invasively collected samples: Methods development and meta-analysis of the validity of different sampling techniques: American Journal of Human Biology.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2021Pooled it
- A parent-of-origin effect on embryonic telomere elongation determines telomere length inheritance.Current biology : CB · 2025Article
- Paternal effects on telomere integrity during the sperm-to-embryo transition.Current opinion in genetics & development · 2025Review
- Exposure to metal mixtures and telomere length in Bangladeshi children.American journal of epidemiology · 2025Article
- Paternal Contributions to Recurrent Pregnancy Loss: Mechanisms, Biomarkers, and Therapeutic Approaches.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2024Review
- Telomeres and SIRT1 as Biomarkers of Gamete Oxidative Stress, Fertility, and Potential IVF Outcome.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Review
- Article
- Developmental origins of health and disease: Impact of paternal nutrition and lifestyle.Pediatric investigation · 2023Review
- Age-associated epigenetic changes in mammalian sperm: implications for offspring health and development.Human reproduction update · 2023Review
- Transmissible cancer and longitudinal telomere dynamics in Tasmanian devils (Sarcophilus harrisii).Molecular ecology · 2022Article
- Insights into the Role of Telomeres in Human Embryological Parameters. Opinions Regarding IVF.Journal of developmental biology · 2021Review
- Urinary arsenic and relative telomere length in 5-7 year old children in Bangladesh.Environment international · 2021Article
- Longitudinal Follow-Up of Blood Telomere Length in HIV-Exposed Uninfected Children Having Received One Year of Lopinavir/Ritonavir or Lamivudine as Prophylaxis.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- Placental and Cord Blood Telomere Length in Relation to Maternal Nutritional Status.The Journal of nutrition · 2020Article
- Testing for paternal influences on offspring telomere length in a human cohort in the Philippines.American journal of physical anthropology · 2020Article
- Telomere Length as a Marker of Biological Age: State-of-the-Art, Open Issues, and Future Perspectives.Frontiers in genetics · 2020Review
- The deteriorating soma and the indispensable germline: gamete senescence and offspring fitness.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2019Article
- The body's integrated repair kit: Studying mesenchymal stem cells for better ligament repair.Biomedical journal · 2019Article
- Early life growth and adult telomere length in a Filipino cohort study.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2019Article
- Transgenerational telomere erosion in the monogametic sex: human telomeres progressively erode in the female germline and do not lengthen in aged testes.Molecular cytogenetics · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
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.
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