Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2020. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Pharmacol Ther. Sep 8, 2020; 11(4): 69-78
Published online Sep 8, 2020. doi: 10.4292/wjgpt.v11.i4.69
Role of telomere shortening in anticipation of inflammatory bowel disease
Brindusa Truta, Elizabeth Wohler, Nara Sobreira, Lisa W. Datta, Steven R. Brant
Brindusa Truta, Lisa W. Datta, Steven R Brant, Division of Gastroenterology & Hepatology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21210, United States
Elizabeth Wohler, Nara Sobreira, McKusick-Nathan Institute of Genetics, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21205, United States
Steven R. Brant, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Medicine, Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, NJ, 08901, United States
Author contributions: Truta B designed the study, performed analysis and wrote the manuscript; Wohler E performed genetic analysis, interpreted the results, reviewed the manuscript; Sobreira N performed genetic analysis; Datta L contributed to data collection; Brant S contributed to study design, data interpretation and editing the manuscript.
Supported by Atran Foundation, NO. 00313651.
Institutional review board statement: This study was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
Informed consent statement: Informed written consent was obtained from the patients.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Brindusa Truta, MD, Assistant Professor, Division of Gastroenterology & Hepatology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 1830 E Monument Street, Room 426, Baltimore, MD 21210, United States. btruta1@jhmi.edu
Received: March 28, 2020
Peer-review started: March 28, 2020
First decision: April 25, 2020
Revised: June 25, 2020
Accepted: August 15, 2020
Article in press: August 15, 2020
Published online: September 8, 2020
Processing time: 156 Days and 14.3 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: This is a retrospective study to evaluate the role of telomere shortening in genetic anticipation of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Genetic anticipation is a long disputed concept in IBD and lacks an explanatory mechanism. We analyzed generational changes in telomere length of eight parent-child pairs of three generation IBD families with anticipation and performed whole exome sequencing to identify genetic variants for autosomal inheritance. Neither telomere shortening or autosomal inheritance was associated with anticipation in our three generation IBD families, suggesting other potential mechanisms underlie this phenomenon.