Stata do file code for simulation analyses from Older paternal ages and grandpaternal ages at conception predict longer telomeres in human descendants.

Telomere length (TL) declines with age in most human tissues, and shorter TL appears to accelerate senescence. By contrast, men's sperm TL is positively correlated with age. Correspondingly, in humans, older paternal age at conception (PAC) predicts longer offspring TL. We have hypothesized that this PAC effect could persist across multiple generations, and thereby contribute to a transgenerational genetic plasticity that increases expenditures on somatic maintenance as the average age at reproduction is delayed within a lineage. Here, we examine TL data from 3282 humans together with PAC data across four generations. In this sample, the PAC effect is detectable in children and grandchildren. The PAC effect is transmitted through the matriline and patriline with similar strength and is characterized by a generational decay. PACs of more distant male ancestors were not significant predictors, although statistical power was limited in these analyses. Sensitivity analyses suggest that the PAC effect is linear, not moderated by offspring age, or maternal age, and is robust to controls for income, urbanicity and ancestry. These findings show that TL reflects the age at the reproduction of recent male matrilineal and patrilineal ancestors, with an effect that decays across generations.

在绝大多数人体组织中，端粒长度（Telomere length, TL）会随年龄增长而缩短，而更短的TL似乎会加速细胞衰老进程。与之形成对比的是，男性精子中的TL与年龄呈正相关。相应地，在人类群体中，受孕时父亲年龄（Paternal age at conception, PAC）越大，其后代的TL越长。我们曾提出假说：该PAC效应可在多代间持续存在，进而促成一种跨代遗传可塑性——当一个谱系内的平均生育年龄延迟时，该可塑性会提升体细胞维持的资源投入。本研究对3282名人类受试者的TL数据及跨越四个世代的PAC数据展开了分析。在该样本中，PAC效应在子代与孙辈中均可被检测到；该效应通过母系与父系谱系传递，且传递强度相似，同时呈现出随世代递减的特征。尽管此类分析的统计效力存在局限，但较远世代男性祖先的PAC无法显著预测后代的TL。敏感性分析结果显示，PAC效应呈线性特征，不受子代年龄或母亲年龄的调节，且在控制收入、城市化程度与祖先血统等变量后依然稳健。上述研究结果表明，TL能够反映近期男性母系与父系祖先的生育年龄，且其效应会随世代推移而衰减。