Fig 1.
Telomere publications 1988–2019.
All publications mentioning telomere length of human DNA from 1988 to 2019 obtained by searching “telomere,” “length,” and “human” in PubMed. Search was completed on May 25, 2020.
Fig 2.
Novel telomere methods developed from 1988 to 2020.
Data were obtained by literature search and through references of telomere review papers and method comparison papers.
Fig 3.
PRISMA flow diagram of literature search and article selection for inclusion.
Date range searched was between Jan 1 2002 to May 10 2020. Other sources of article identification included suggestions from participants of the TRN and review of reference lists of selected papers.
Table 1.
Characteristics of included papers.
Table 2.
Results of reporting guidelines analysis for TRN and Morinha reporting guidelines.
Table 3.
Item-specific reporting results of the TRN reporting guidelines.
Fig 4.
Weighted average correlation (Pearson’s r) and 95% CI for each method compared with qPCR, MMqPCR, or aTL.
LCL: lower confidence limit. UCL: upper confidence limit. The point sizes for each comparison are weighted by the number of individual papers with that comparison.
Fig 5.
A. The sample size required to test effect sizes of 150, 200 and 300 bp with a t-test with a power of 0.9, as a function of measurement error as expressed in the ICC. Calculations assumed a realistic (true) standard deviation of 650 bp and power analysis was done using G*Power [57]. N is the combined n of the two groups to be compared and was assumed to be equally distributed among the two groups. B, C. Power to detect a 33% change of telomere shortening rate, up or down, with p<0.05 relative to a baseline shortening rate of 25 bp/year. D. Four-year follow-up period. E. Eight-year follow-up period. Power was calculated for sample sizes as shown (200–2800), equally divided over the two levels of telomere shortening rate. Baseline telomere shortening was simulated assuming a Poisson distribution with mean/variance of 25, and population SD of telomere length was maintained at 0.65 kb at both time points.