Telomeres are the protective caps of chromosomes. They shorten with cell replication, age, and possibly environmental stimuli (eg, infection and stress). Short telomere length (TL) predicts subsequent worse health. Although venous whole blood (VWB) is most commonly used for TL measurement, other, more minimally invasive, sampling techniques are becoming increasingly common due to their field‐friendliness, allowing for feasible measurement in low‐resource contexts. We conducted statistical validation work for measuring TL in dried blood spots (DBS) and incorporated our results into a meta‐analysis evaluating minimally invasive sampling techniques to measure TL.

中文翻译：

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微创采集样本的端粒长度分析：不同采样技术有效性的方法开发和荟萃分析

端粒是染色体的保护帽。它们随着细胞复制、年龄和可能的环境刺激（例如感染和压力）而缩短。短端粒长度 (TL) 预示着随后的健康状况更差。尽管静脉全血 (VWB) 最常用于 TL 测量，但其他更微创的采样技术由于其现场友好性而变得越来越普遍，允许在资源匮乏的情况下进行可行的测量。我们对测量干血斑 (DBS) 中的 TL 进行了统计验证工作，并将我们的结果纳入评估微创采样技术以测量 TL 的荟萃分析中。