Andersen-Ranberg K, Schroll M, Jeune B (

) Healthy centenarians do exist, but autonomous centenarians do: a population-based study of among Danish centenarians. J. Am. Geriatr. Soc.

,

–

Andrew T, Aviv A, Falchi M, Surdulescu GL, Gardner JP, Lu X, Kimura M, BS, Valdes AM, Spector TD (

) Mapping genetic loci that determine cyte telomere length in a large sample of unselected female sibling pairs. J. Hum. Genet.

,

–

Atzmon G, Cho M, Cawthon RM, Budagov T, Katz M, Yang X, Siegel G, man A, Huffman DM, Schechter CB, Wright WE, Shay JW, Barzilai N, indaraju DR, Suh Y (

) Genetic variation in human telomerase is with telomere length in Ashkemazi centenarians. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci.

(

),

–

Bakaysa SL, Mucci LA, Slagboom PE, Boomsma DI, M

learn GE, Johansson Pedersen NL (

) Telomere length predicts survival independent of influences. Aging Cell

,

–

Bischoff C, Graakjaer J, Petersen HC, Hjelmborg JB, Vaupel JW, Bohr V, S, Christensen K (

) The heritability of telomere length among the and oldest-old. Twin. Res. Hum. Genet.

,

–

Blackburn EH, Greider CW, Szostak JW (

) Telomeres and telomerase: path from maize, Tetrahymena and yeast to human cancer and aging. Med.

,

–

Sex- and age-adjusted linear regression analysis was performed in STATA 11.1 for inspecting the association of single-SNP genotypes with LTL, using the robust estimator. The assumptions of the linear regression were initially tested, and in the case of a sex or age effect, an interaction model was applied, and when indicated gender-specific analysis was performed. Because the individuals investigated belonged to different cohorts, an effect of cohort was initially tested in the regression analyses, but since no effect was observed this variable was disregarded.

The Thesias statistical program (Tregouet & Garelle, 2007) was used for investigating associations of all haplotype combinations of the four TERT candidate SNPs with LTL. Linear regression analyses were adjusted for sex and age, and the most frequent haplotype was used as reference.

Findings were corrected for multiple testing by the Bonferroni down (Holm) correction.

Campisi J, d’Adda de Fagagna F (

) Cellular senescence: when bad things happen to good cells. Nat. Rev. Mol. Cell Biol.

,

–

Christensen K, Johnson TE, Vaupel JW (

) The quest for genetic determinants of human longevity: challenges and insights. Nat. Rev. Genet.

,

–

Codd V, Mangino M, van der HP, Braund PS, Kaiser M, Beveridge AJ, Rafelt S, Moore J, Nelson C, Soranzo N, Zhai G, Valdes AM, Blackburn H, Mateo LI, de Boer RA, Goodall AH, Ouwehand W, van Veldhuisen DJ, van Gilst WH, Navis G, Burton PR, Tobin MD, Hall AS, Thompson JR, Spector T, Samani NJ (

) Common variants near TERC are associated with mean telomere length. Nat. Genet.

,

–

Fitzpatrick AL, Kronmal RA, Kimura M, Gardner JP, Psaty BM, Jenny NS, Tracy RP, Hardikar S, Aviv A (

) Leukocyte telomere length and mortality in the cardiovascular health study. J. Gerontol. A Biol. Sci. Med. Sci.

,

–

Gunn DA, Rexbye H, Griffiths CE, Murray PG, Fereday A, Catt SD, Tomlin CC, Strongitharm BH, Perrett DI, Catt M, Mayes AE, Messenger AG, Green MR, van der OF, Vaupel JW, Christensen K (

) Why some women look young for their age. PL

ONE

, e

Herskind AM, M

ue M, Holm NV, Sorensen TI, Harvald B, Vaupel JW (

) The heritability of human longevity: a population-based study of

Danish twin pairs born

–

Hum. Genet.

,

–

Hjelmborg JVb, Iachine I, Skytthe A, Vaupel JW, M

ue M, Koskenvuo M, Kapri- o J, Pedersen NL, Christensen K (

) Genetic influence on human lifespan and longevity. Hum. Genet.

,

–

Kimura M, Hjelmborg JV, Gardner JP, Bathum L, Brimacombe M, Lu X, Christian- sen L, Vaupel JW, Aviv A, Christensen K (

) Telomere length and mortality: a study of leukocytes in elderly Danish twins. Am. J. Epidemiol.

,

–

Kimura M, Stone RC, Hunt SC, Skurnick J, Lu X, Cao X, Harley CB, Aviv A (

) Measurement of telomere length by the Southern blot analysis of ter- minal restriction fragment lengths. Nat. Protoc.

,

–

Levy D, Neuhausen SL, Hunt SC, Kimura M, Hwang SJ, Chen W, Bis JC, Fitzpa- trick AL, Smith E, Johnson AD, Gardner JP, Srinivasan SR, Schork N, Rotter JI, Herbig U, Psaty BM, Sastrasinh M, Murray SS, Vasan RS, Province MA, Glazer NL, Lu X, Cao X, Kronmal R, Mangino M, Soranzo N, Spector TD, Berenson GS, Aviv A (

) Genome-wide association identifies OBFC

as a locus involved in human leukocyte telomere biology. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA

,

–

Lindsey J, M

ill NI, Lindsey LA, Green DK, Cooke HJ (

) In vivo loss of telo- meric repeats with age in humans. Mutat. Res.

,

–

Mirabello L, Yu K, Kraft P, De VI, Hunter DJ, Prescott J, Wong JY, Chatterjee N, Hayes RB, Savage SA (

) The association of telomere length and genetic variation in telomere biology genes. Hum. Mutat.

,

–

Njajou OT, Cawthon RM, Damcott CM, Wu SH, Ott S, Garant MJ, Blackburn EH, Mitchell BD, Shuldiner AR, Hsueh WC (

) Telomere length is paternally inherited and is associated with parental lifespan. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA

,

–

Campisi J, d’Adda de Fagagna F (2007) Cellular senescence: when bad things happen to good cells. Nat. Rev. Mol. Cell Biol. 8, 729–740.

Nybo H, Gaist D, Jeune B, Bathum L, McGue M, Vaupel JW, Christensen K (2001) The Danish 1905 cohort: a genetic-epidemiological nationwide survey.

(

) The Danish

cohort: a genetic-epidemiological nationwide survey. J. Aging Health

,

–

Pedersen CB, Gotzsche H, Moller JO, Mortensen PB (

) The Danish Civil Reg- istration System. A cohort of eight million persons. Dan. Med. Bull.

,

–

Purcell S, Neale B, Todd-Brown K, Thomas L, Ferreira MAR, Bender D, Maller J, Sklar P, de Bakker PIW, Daly MJ, Sham PC (

) PLINK: a toolset for whole- genome association and population-based linkage analysis. Am. J. Hum. Genet.

, pp.

–

Shay JW, Woodring WE (