Lengthened telomere length in peripheral blood leukocytes in patients with rheumatoid arthritis complicated with airway disease.

OBJECTIVES: Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) frequently have complications including chronic lung diseases (CLDs) consisting of airway disease (AD) or interstitial lung disease (ILD) that confer a poor prognosis. Peripheral blood leukocyte telomere length is shortened in RA with ILD. Previous studies reported rare variants in telomerase genes that were deleterious were more frequent in RA with ILD compared with controls. However, these studies were conducted in European populations. Here, we investigated associations of telomere length with ILD or AD in Japanese RA. METHODS: The lengths of telomeres in 108 RA patients with usual interstitial pneumonia, 134 with nonspecific interstitial pneumonia, 236 with AD, 50 with emphysema and 425 without CLDs were measured by quantitative polymerase chain reaction. RESULTS: A significantly longer telomere length was observed in RA with AD (P = 0.0071). Multiple logistic regression analyses indicated the association of telomere length with AD remained (Padjusted=0.0029) when conditioned on TERT rs2736100, a single nucleotide variant related to AD in Japanese RA, and clinical characteristics, suggesting an independent association. CONCLUSIONS: We report telomere length was independently associated with AD in Japanese RA patients.