Maternal opioid use is reflected on leukocyte telomere length of male newborns

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 16; no. 12; p. e0261013
• Main Authors: Rahimi Mehdi Abad, Fatemeh, Khalili, Parvin, Jalali, Fatemeh, Pirsadeghi, Ali, Esmaeili Nadimi, Ali, Manshoori, Azita, Jalali, Zahra
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 17-12-2021; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Adults; Age related diseases; Aging; Alzheimer's disease; Alzheimers disease; Biochemistry; Biology and Life Sciences; Biomarkers; Blood; Case-Control Studies; Cell division; Chromosomes; Chronic illnesses; Complications and side effects; Cord blood; Demographic aspects; Deoxyribonucleic acid; DNA; Drug use; Female; Fetal Blood; Genetic testing; Gestational diabetes; Health aspects; Health facilities; Heroin; Humans; Infant, Newborn; Infants (Newborn); Leukocytes; Male; Males; Maternal Age; Maternal Exposure; Medicine; Medicine and Health Sciences; Mothers; Narcotics; Neonates; Newborn babies; Offspring; Opioid-Related Disorders - complications; Opioid-Related Disorders - genetics; Opioids; Patient outcomes; Pregnancy; Pregnancy Complications - genetics; Prenatal Exposure Delayed Effects - genetics; Public health; Questionnaires; Regression analysis; Sensitivity analysis; Telomerase; Telomere Shortening; Telomeres; Thermal cycling; Umbilical cord; Womens health; Young Adult; Iran
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0261013

Opioid use accelerates normal aging in adults that raises a question on whether it may trans-generationally affect aging and aging biomarkers in the offspring of users as well? In the present research, we investigated the relative telomere length in umbilical cord blood of newborns born to opioid consuming mothers compared to normal controls. Telomere length shortening is a known biomarker of aging and aging related diseases. Its measure at birth or early in life is considered as a predictor of individual health in adulthood. Here, we performed a case-control study to investigate whether maternal opioid use affects newborns relative telomere length (RTL). 57 mother-newborn dyads were included in this study, 30 neonates with opioid using mothers (OM), and 27 with not-opioid using mothers (NOM)). RTL was measured in leukocyte cells genomic DNA using real-time PCR. The correlation of maternal opioid use with neonates telomer length was assessed using logistic regression analysis. The results displayed a significant association between odds ratio of long RTL and maternal opioid use when sensitivity analysis was performed by neonate sex; where the data indicates significantly increased odds ratio of long leukocyte RTL in association with maternal opioid use in male neonates only. Further work is necessary to assess this association in larger samples and test the potential underlying mechanisms for this observation.