Bipolar disorder (BD) has been previously associated with accelerated aging, and recent investigations have started to explore the potential anti-aging effects of BD treatments. Lithium, the most commonly used mood stabilizer, has been suggested to impact telomere length in specific populations, although its effects on other aging biomarkers, such as epigenetic aging, have never been investigated. We assessed the in vitro effects of lithium on telomere length and epigenetic aging in lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCLs) from 14 patients with BD and 14 controls, all matched for age, sex, and ethnicity. Our results showed that telomere length significantly correlated with chronological age in LCLs in both groups and that BD patients have shorter telomere lengths compared to controls at baseline (vehicle treatment), confirming previous in vivo findings. Moreover, lithium treatment significantly increased telomere length in LCLs from patients, but not in controls. On the other hand, epigenetic age did not correlate with chronological age and was not shown to differ between patients and controls. In addition, lithium did not induce any changes in epigenetic age in cells from either patients or controls. Overall, our results support previous reports of an anti-aging effect of lithium based on its modulation of telomere length and suggest a different lithium effect in cells from patients and controls. Finally, we also discuss the limitations of using transformed LCLs for the study of DNA methylation mechanisms.

双相情感障碍 (BD) 以前与加速衰老有关，最近的研究已经开始探索 BD 治疗的潜在抗衰老作用。锂是最常用的情绪稳定剂，已被建议影响特定人群的端粒长度，尽管从未研究过它对其他衰老生物标志物（如表观遗传衰老）的影响。我们评估了体外锂对来自 14 名 BD 患者和 14 名对照的淋巴母细胞系 (LCL) 端粒长度和表观遗传衰老的影响，所有患者的年龄、性别和种族均匹配。我们的结果表明，端粒长度与两组 LCL 的实际年龄显着相关，并且与基线（车辆治疗）的对照组相比，BD 患者的端粒长度更短，证实了之前的体内试验发现。此外，锂治疗显着增加了患者 LCL 的端粒长度，但在对照组中则不然。另一方面，表观遗传年龄与实足年龄无关，并且在患者和对照之间没有显示出差异。此外，锂离子不会引起患者或对照细胞的表观遗传年龄发生任何变化。总体而言，我们的结果支持之前关于锂基于端粒长度调节的抗衰老作用的报告，并表明锂在患者和对照细胞中的作用不同。最后，我们还讨论了使用转化的 LCL 研究 DNA 甲基化机制的局限性。