Abstract 3456: Polychlorinated biphenyls and relative telomere length in the Anniston Community Health Survey: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

Abstract Background: Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) exposure is associated with increased risk of melanoma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma in some, but not all, epidemiologic studies. Although the carcinogenic mechanisms of specific PCB congeners remain to be fully explained, PCBs have been demonstrated to induce oxidative stress and inflammation and therefore may have deleterious impacts on telomere length. We investigated the association between serum concentrations of PCBs and telomere length in a highly exposed population. Methods: The Anniston Community Health Survey (ACHS) is a cross-sectional study of 766 residents of Anniston, Alabama conducted between 2005 and 2007. We measured relative telomere length (RTL) with telomere/single copy gene ratio, in DNA extracted from peripheral blood samples in a subset of 57 African-American and 46 white participants, using monochrome multiplex quantitative polymerase chain reaction. We used multiple linear regression to estimate the association between 27 individual PCB congeners, and sum PCBs, adjusting for age, plate, and total lipids. All analyses were stratified by race. PCBs and RTL were log-transformed. Results: ACHS participants had high serum concentrations of PCBs (mean sum PCBs among African-Americans = 14,687.69 ppt whole weight, SD = 23,515.46; mean sum PCBs white participants 6,088.32 ppt whole weight, SD = 8,750.57). RTL did not differ by race (mean RTL African-Americans = 0.94 SD = 0.08; mean RTL whites = 0.94, SD = 0.09). Among African-American participants, sum serum PCBs was not associated with RTL (0.70% per 100 ppt; 95% confidence interval = -9.43, 19.70). However, PCB 167 was weakly associated with higher RTL (2.35%, 95%CI = -8.56, 14.55), while PCB 157 was associated with shorter RTL (-4.36%; 95%CI = -15.63, 8.40). Among white participants, a 100 ppt increase in sum serum PCBs was associated with a 10.20% increase in RTL (95% CI = -7.10, 30.72). PCB 138, in particular, was associated with increased RTL among white participants (16.29%; 95% CI = 1.34, 33.46). Conversely, PCB 189 was associated with shorter RTL among white participants (-10.48%; 95%CI = -29.82, 14.19). Conclusions: We did not observe consistent associations between serum concentrations of PCBs and RTL, suggesting that the association may vary by race and be congener specific. Our results are necessarily preliminary and are limited by the small number of participants. Additional measurements of RTL among ACHS participants are on-going. Citation Format: Catherine Callahan, Marian Pavuk, Xuefeng Ren, James R. Olson, Matthew R. Bonner. Polychlorinated biphenyls and relative telomere length in the Anniston Community Health Survey: A cross-sectional study. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2016 Apr 16-20; New Orleans, LA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(14 Suppl):Abstract nr 3456.