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Genetic anticipation is associated with telomere shortening in hereditary breast cancer.

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TLDR
Evidence is provided that telomere shortening is associated with earlier age of cancer onset in successive generations of affected families, suggesting that it might be a mechanism of genetic anticipation in hereditary breast cancer.
Abstract
There is increasing evidence suggesting that short telomeres and subsequent genomic instability contribute to malignant transformation. Telomere shortening has been described as a mechanism to explain genetic anticipation in dyskeratosis congenita and Li-Fraumeni syndrome. Since genetic anticipation has been observed in familial breast cancer, we aimed to study telomere length in familial breast cancer patients and hypothesized that genetic defects causing this disease would affect telomere maintenance resulting in shortened telomeres. Here, we first investigated age anticipation in mother-daughter pairs with breast cancer in 623 breast cancer families, classified as BRCA1, BRCA2, and BRCAX. Moreover, we analyzed telomere length in DNA from peripheral blood leukocytes by quantitative PCR in a set of 198 hereditary breast cancer patients, and compared them with 267 control samples and 71 sporadic breast cancer patients. Changes in telomere length in mother-daughter pairs from breast cancer families and controls were also evaluated to address differences through generations. We demonstrated that short telomeres characterize hereditary but not sporadic breast cancer. We have defined a group of BRCAX families with short telomeres, suggesting that telomere maintenance genes might be susceptibility genes for breast cancer. Significantly, we described that progressive telomere shortening is associated with earlier onset of breast cancer in successive generations of affected families. Our results provide evidence that telomere shortening is associated with earlier age of cancer onset in successive generations, suggesting that it might be a mechanism of genetic anticipation in hereditary breast cancer.

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Impact of Maternal Age on Oocyte and Embryo Competence

TL;DR: The main strategies proposed to improve the management of advanced maternal age women in IVF: fertility preservation through oocyte cryopreservation to prevent aging; optimization of the ovarian stimulation and enhancement of embryo selection to limit its effects; and oocyte donation to circumvent its consequences.
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Physical activity and telomere length: Impact of aging and potential mechanisms of action

TL;DR: Several potential mechanisms through which physical activity or exercise could affect telomere length are discussed, including changes in telomerase activity, oxidative stress, inflammation, and decreased skeletal muscle satellite cell content.
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Delayed paternal age of reproduction in humans is associated with longer telomeres across two generations of descendants

TL;DR: A mechanism by which humans could extend late-life function as average age at reproduction is delayed within a lineage is suggested, pointing to potentially important impacts on health and the pace of senescent decline in tissues and systems that are cell-replication dependent.
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Oocyte competency is the key to embryo potential.

TL;DR: Analysis of polar body DNA provides a window into the oocyte's genome and telomeres, which may enhance prediction of embryo developmental competence.
Journal ArticleDOI

The complex genetic landscape of familial breast cancer.

TL;DR: This review focuses on the complex landscape of pathological, protein, genetic and genomic features associated with BRCA1-BRCA2-related cancers described up to date, with special emphasis on the coexistence of distinct molecular breast cancer subtypes, the development of tumour classifiers to predict BRCa1/2 mutations, and the last insights from recent whole genome sequencing studies and miRNA profiling.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI

Telomere measurement by quantitative PCR

TL;DR: A primer pair is presented that eliminates the problem of presumed impossible to measure telomeres in vertebrate DNA by PCR amplification with oligonucleotide primers designed to hybridize to the TTAGGG and CCCTAA repeats, allowing simple and rapid measurement of telomere length in a closed tube, fluorescence-based assay.
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Accelerated telomere shortening in response to life stress

TL;DR: Evidence is provided that psychological stress--both perceived stress and chronicity of stress--is significantly associated with higher oxidative stress, lower telomerase activity, and shorter telomere length, in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from healthy premenopausal women.
Journal ArticleDOI

Genome-wide association study identifies novel breast cancer susceptibility loci

Douglas F. Easton, +109 more
- 28 Jun 2007 - 
TL;DR: To identify further susceptibility alleles, a two-stage genome-wide association study in 4,398 breast cancer cases and 4,316 controls was conducted, followed by a third stage in which 30 single nucleotide polymorphisms were tested for confirmation.
Journal ArticleDOI

Oxidative stress shortens telomeres

TL;DR: It is suggested here that oxidative stress is an important modulator of telomeres loss and that telomere-driven replicative senescence is primarily a stress response.
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