Evidence map›Paper›PMID 41844165›Full record

ArticleCell reports methods2026

Tissue morphology predicts telomere shortening in human tissues.

Anamika Yadav, Kyle Alvarez, Akanimoh Adeleye, Yu Xin Wang, Michael Jackson, Sanju Sinha

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Cell reports methods, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

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0citing papers in PubMed
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1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

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.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

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Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

0 citing papers in PubMed.

No citing paper in PubMed yet.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

6 authors.

Anamika YadavSanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, La Jolla, CA 92126, USA.
Kyle AlvarezSanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, La Jolla, CA 92126, USA.
Akanimoh AdeleyeSanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, La Jolla, CA 92126, USA.
Yu Xin WangSanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, La Jolla, CA 92126, USA.
Michael JacksonSanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, La Jolla, CA 92126, USA.
Sanju SinhaSanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, La Jolla, CA 92126, USA. Electronic address: ssinha@sbpdiscovery.org.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

We present TLPath, a deep learning framework that predicts bulk-tissue telomere length from tissue morphology extracted from routine histopathology images. The central thesis of TLPath is that telomere length can be determined from tissue morphology. Trained on >5,000 whole-slide images across 919 individuals and 18 organs, TLPath discovers that extracted morphological features naturally separate young, middle-aged, and elderly individuals, demonstrating that aging causes architectural changes in tissues detectable without explicit age supervision. These features accurately predict telomere length (correlation r = 0.51) in 11 tissues, outperforming chronological age. This enabled us to identify young tissues with considerably shortened telomeres than expected and old tissues with preserved telomeres based on their morphology. Model interpretation revealed that TLPath leverages senescence markers, including increased nuclear-to-cytoplasmic ratio and altered nuclear shape heterogeneity, resulting from telomere shortening. In ∼2,800 GTEx biopsies, TLPath detected shortened telomeres across multiple tissues in individuals with type 1 and type 2 diabetes, validated experimentally. H&E imaging-based tissue morphology can determine bulk-telomere shortening, enabling large-scale telomere biology studies.

Indexed as

TelomereTelomere ShorteningAdultAgedAgingDeep LearningDiabetes Mellitus, Type 2FemaleHumansMaleMiddle Agedagingcomputational pathologyCP: systems biologydigital pathologyGTExhistopathologytelomere

Identifiers

PMID41844165
PMCPMC13030961

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.