Analysis of telomere length in patients with COVID-19 and investigation into its relationship with clinical- demographic data

Purpose: Novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious disease unknown before the 2019 outbreak in Wuhan. This study evaluated telomere length in COVID-19 (+) and (-) samples with clinical-demographic parameters. Materials and Methods: DNA was isolated from COVID-19 (+) (n=70) and (-) (n=70) patients. Telomere length was determined by real-time-PCR (RT-PCR). The 2–∆∆Ct method was used to analyze the telomere length of the samples. Results: There were significant differences in creatinine, LDH, ferritin, WBC, NEU and CRP in COVID-19 (+) patients compared to COVID-19 (-) patients. The NEU/LYM (or N/L) ratio was found higher in the patients with COVID-19 (+), than in COVID-19 (-). On the other hand, our COVID-19 (+) patients (mean±std:0.93±0.58) had significantly shorter telomere lengths than the COVID-19 (-) (mean±std:1.26±0.76). Moreover, COVID-19 (+) male patients (mean±std:1.06±0.50) had longer telomere length than female patients (mean±std:0.76±0.54). Telomere length was significantly shorter in patients with COVID-19 (+)with high blood urea nitrogen (BUN), high creatinine, high hematocrit, high NEU levels, normal platelets (PLT), and low WBC levels. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that telomere length and blood parameter levels influence the severity of COVID-19. Blood parameters differed in patients with COVID-19 (+) and COVID-19 (-). As a result, increasing the number of similar studies in the future can demonstrate the significance of our findings. Keywords: COVID-19, Telomere length, RT-PCR, NEU/LYM, blood