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Show 134 Louis-Bassett Porter school of medicine and health sciences Background: Telomere shortening (TS) has been associated with shorter longevity and CAD. However, it is not understood whether TS directly affects biological processes leading to coronary disease or whether both coronary disease and TS occur as a function of biologic age and are causally unrelated. Similarly, the recent discovery of a variant in the telomerase gene that effectively adds 7-8 years of age-equivalent TS allows an experiment to determine if telomere length is causally related to coronary heart disease. Ulti-mately, the study seeks to determine how novel a risk factor telomere length is in the prediction of heart disease and what it contributes to a person's risk of obtaining heart disease. Methods: Cases are collected from the Intermountain Heart Collaborative study (n=200) that had telo-mere (TL) measurements and had a subsequent sample (>3 yrs). TL length measured in triplicate using monochrome (SYBR Green) multiplex quantitative PCR. Subsequent DNA samples were collected from peripheral blood leukocytes and circulating DNA from plasma. The assay only proves effective for intact, high-molecular weight DNA. All samples were shown to be intact using gel electrophoresis. The contribu-tion of TL length and other longevity biomarkers were assessed using a Cox regression model. Results: Intact DNA was obtained for 80% of plasmas samples with a mean DNA yield of 30 nanograms/ microliter, with none of the samples showing evidence of degradation. For the purposes of testing the study hypothesis, although the study is not yet completed, the novel study protocol of serial plasma DNA extraction from blood plasma was found to be to be adequate. THE CORRELATION OF TELOMERE SHORTENING TO CORONARY HEART DISEASE Louis-Bassett Porter (Jeffrey L. Anderson) LDS Hospital, Cardiology Department University of Utah UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH ABSTRACTS Jeffrey L. Anderson |