The skin is the largest organ in the body. Skin aging involves multiple complex factors. Telomere length of cells is known to be a common risk factor for aging and age-related diseases. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the relevance of telomere length and skin aging and diseases such as skin cancer.

CD BioSciences provides telomere length measurement services for human skin epidermal or dermal cell samples, which help to explore the correlation between telomere length and skin aging. The measurement results provide a reference for future clinical practice.

The Role of Telomeres in the Ageing of Human Skin

The skin is a highly self-renewing tissue that must undergo extensive proliferation throughout the life cycle of the organism. In particular, telomere shortening acts as a mitotic clock, preventing abnormal proliferation but leading to cellular senescence and aging. It is widely believed that telomere shortening causes aging and increases the risk of cancer. However, many studies have found that excessive telomere lengthening also leads to cancer.

Consequently, the association and contradictions need further study. Perhaps, in the future, skin could be used as an accessible tissue to modify its telomere-related properties to improve skin diseases associated with aging.

Our Services

Our service focuses on measuring the telomere length of skin tissue using the telomere length aging clock platform.

• Samples. We can accept skin tissue or cell samples obtained from digestion or prepared DNA samples. Specific sample requirements can be found in the description at the bottom of the page. You don't have to worry about the volume of DNA samples. Our PCR-based method can minimize sample volume requirements.
• Measurement and analysis. Based on our telomere aging clock technology, you can obtain a relatively low-cost testing service suitable for high throughput. We quantify telomere length by comparing the amount of telomere amplification products (T) to the amount of single copy genes (S), and then calculate the T/S ratio to generate a value that correlates with average telomere length.

Great Test Quality

You will work with us to select services for telomere length measurement of skin samples without considering issues related to sample shipping, sample quality, test quality, etc. We will discuss and detail with you the various validation studies used in the assay to ensure accuracy.

• We give detailed descriptions of the control samples evaluated in each lot of the telomere length assay.
• The assays can be selected on the basis of the sample and are well reproducible.
• We have extensive experience in performing telomere length testing and can provide case studies for reference.

Sample Requirements

We accept normal skin samples and can process them for analysis.

• Process skin tissue samples. Digest overnight at 4°C with collagenase to separate epidermis and dermis, and store at -80°C.
• Prepare DNA samples. Each sample needs to be processed for genomic DNA preparation, either with nucleic acid extraction kits or phenol/chloroform/isopentyl alcohol, etc. The degradation of DNA is checked by gel electrophoresis.
• Samples delivery. Samples must be collected immediately and sent to us within 24-36 h after collection according to shipping conditions.

Contact us to learn more about our telomere measurements on human samples.

References

1. Son N, et al. Association Between Telomere Length and Skin Cancer and Aging: A Mendelian Randomization Analysis. Front Genet, 2022, 13: 931785.
2. Sugimoto M, et al. Telomere length of the skin in association with chronological aging and photoaging. Journal of dermatological science, 2006, 43(1): 43-47.

Our services are for research use only and not for any clinical use.