Shorter telomere length predicts poor antidepressant response and poorer cardiometabolic indices in major depression

• Published in: Scientific reports 2023-06, Vol.13 (1), p.10238-10238, Article 10238
• Main Authors: Rampersaud, Ryan, Wu, Gwyneth W. Y., Reus, Victor I., Lin, Jue, Blackburn, Elizabeth H., Epel, Elissa S., Hough, Christina M., Mellon, Synthia H., Wolkowitz, Owen M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 631/80/103/560; 692/53; 692/699/476/1414; Age; Aging; Antidepressants; Antidepressive Agents - therapeutic use; Anxiety; Biological stress; Biomarkers; Cardiovascular diseases; Cardiovascular Diseases - drug therapy; Cell division; Depression; Depressive Disorder, Major - drug therapy; Depressive Disorder, Major - genetics; Health risks; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Leukocytes, Mononuclear - metabolism; Mental depression; Mental disorders; Metabolism; multidisciplinary; Oxidative stress; Peripheral blood mononuclear cells; Physiology; Psychotropic drugs; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors - therapeutic use; Senescence; Serotonin uptake inhibitors; Telomerase; Telomerase - genetics; Telomere - metabolism; Telomere Shortening; Telomeres; Yeast
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-35912-z

Telomere length (TL) is a marker of biological aging, and shorter telomeres have been associated with several medical and psychiatric disorders, including cardiometabolic dysregulation and Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). In addition, studies have shown shorter TL to be associated with poorer response to certain psychotropic medications, and our previous work suggested shorter TL and higher telomerase activity (TA) predicts poorer response to Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor (SSRI) treatment. Using a new group of unmedicated medically healthy individuals with MDD (n = 48), we sought to replicate our prior findings demonstrating that peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) TL and TA predict response to SSRI treatment and to identify associations between TL and TA with biological stress mediators and cardiometabolic risk indices. Our results demonstrate that longer pre-treatment TL was associated with better response to SSRI treatment ( β  = .407 p  = .007). Additionally, we observed that TL had a negative relationship with allostatic load ( β  = − .320 p  = .017) and a cardiometabolic risk score (β = − .300 p  = .025). Our results suggest that PBMC TL reflects, in part, the cumulative effects of physiological stress and cardiovascular risk in MDD and may be a biomarker for predicting SSRI response.