Validation of Minimally-Invasive Sample Collection Methods for Measurement of Telomere Length

Peer-Reviewed Scientific Journal:
Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience

Size of study:
24 healthy young adults

Summary
The gold standard for DNA extraction for measuring telomere length has traditionally been venous blood draw. However, recent advances have led to researchers to look to other sources of DNA for TL measurement using TeloYears’ proprietary measurement method – qPCR. In this study, researchers used the DNA from 3 different methods – from venous blood draw, from dried blood spot from a finger prick and saliva in 24 healthy young adults – as the basis for relative TL measurement. The TL measurements from the venous blood draw and the finger prick blood were correlated. Saliva and venous blood was also correlated but not as strongly as venous blood and finger prick blood – measurements from saliva were longer than in venous or finger prick blood. The authors conclude that finger prick blood can be used as a minimally invasive technique for DNA collection for telomere length measurement using qPCR.

Link to study

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