PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Nazmul Huda
AU  - Praveen Kusumanchi
AU  - Kristina Perez
AU  - Yanchao Jiang
AU  - Nicholas J Skill
AU  - Zhaoli Sun
AU  - Jing Ma
AU  - Zhihong Yang
AU  - Suthat Liangpunsakul
TI  - Telomere length in patients with alcohol-associated liver disease: a brief report
AID  - 10.1136/jim-2021-002213
DP  - 2022 Aug 01
TA  - Journal of Investigative Medicine
PG  - 1438--1441
VI  - 70
IP  - 6
4099  - http://hw-f5-jim.highwire.org/content/70/6/1438.short
4100  - http://hw-f5-jim.highwire.org/content/70/6/1438.full
SO  - J Investig Med2022 Aug 01; 70
AB  - The intact telomere structure is essential for the prevention of the chromosome end-to-end fusions and maintaining genomic integrity. The maintenance of telomere length is critical for cellular homeostasis. The shortening of telomeres has been reported in patients with chronic liver diseases. The telomere length has not been systemically studied in patients with alcohol-associated liver disease (ALD) at different stages, such as alcoholic hepatitis and alcoholic cirrhosis. In this brief report, we observed evidence of telomere shortening without changes in the telomerase activity in the liver of patients with alcoholic hepatitis and alcoholic cirrhosis when compared with controls. The alterations in the genes associated with telomere binding proteins were only observed in patients with alcoholic cirrhosis. Future studies are required to determine the mechanism of how alcohol affects the length of the telomere and if the shortening impacts the disease progression in ALD.