P6549Inflammasome-induced endothelial microparticles impair cellular function in arterial smooth muscle cells

Introduction:Telomeres are tandem repeats of DNA sequences located at the chromosomal ends that function to stabilise the genetic structure.The relevance of telomeres has been shown for different human disorders including cardiovascular disease.Yet, the majority of these studies was performed in disease specific cohorts with small samples sizes.Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate the association of relative telomere length (RTL) with cardiovascular risk factors and cardiovascular disease in a large population based cohort.Methods: RTL was measured according to a previously validated real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction technique in subjects of the Gutenberg Health Study (n=5000).An association study of RTL with cardiovascular risk factors smoking status, LDL, HDL, triglycerides, BMI, systolic and diastolic blood pressure as well as an association study of RTL with cardiovascular diseases heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HF-REF), heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HF-PEF), myocardial infarction (MI), family history of MI, coronary artery disease (CAD) and atrial fibrillation (AF) was performed.Results: A significant association was found between RTL and smoking status (effect -0.016, p=0.048), however, no association was found with lipid levels, blood pressure and BMI.For cardiovascular disease, a moderate association was found with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (effect: -0.030, p=0.062).Interestingly, RTL also associated significantly with the surrogate biomarkers of heart failure NT-proBNP (effect: -0.007, p=0.009) as well as Troponin I (effect: -1.495, p=0.040).In contrast, no association of RTL was found with HF-REF, MI, family history of MI, CAD, AF. Conclusion:In a large population based study, RTL showed only moderate association to smoking and markers of heart failure, however for the majority of cardiovascular diseases no significant association was detected.