# Impact of Phthalate Exposure on Telomere Biology in Utero

> **NIH NIH R01** · NEW YORK UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE · 2024 · $359,000

## Abstract

This proposal posits that phthalates, which are widely considered endocrine disrupting chemicals, interfere with
human telomere biology in utero, leading to shortening of telomeres in the placenta and newborn. Specifically,
it is hypothesized that phthalates alter the activity of telomerase through actions on hTERT, which encodes the
catalytic subunit of the enzyme. As telomere length (TL) is largely determined at birth, prenatal exposure to
phthalates could reset one’s lifelong TL trajectory with potential health effects during adulthood. Southern
blotting (SB) and the Telomeres Shortest Length Assay (TeSLA) will be used to examine associations between
prenatal phthalate exposure and TL parameters measured in the placenta-newborn unit. The placenta will
further be leveraged to gain a mechanistic understanding of molecular outcomes related to phthalate exposure.
This will be achieved by quantifying hTERT expression, telomerase activity, formation of telomere dysfunction-
induced DNA damage foci (TIF), activation of cell cycle checkpoints and senescence markers in tandem with
measuring TL parameters. TL measurements in umbilical cord blood and follow-up blood at approximately age
8 years will serve to test whether a putative phthalate effect on TL persists through the first decade of life.
Generating longitudinal TL data will not only provide insight into the endurance of the phthalate effect, but will
also fill a critical knowledge gap about early life TL dynamics. This research will leverage existing prenatal
phthalate data and biobanked perinatal biospecimens (placenta and cord blood) from 500 mother-child pairs
enrolled in the prospective New York University Children’s Health and Environment Study (NYU CHES). The
proposal benefits from the strong collaboration between W. Cowell (Contact PI), an environmental and
molecular epidemiologist with over 10 years of experience working with birth cohorts and A. Aviv (Co-PI), an
expert in telomere biology. Knowledge gained can provide a foundation for the use of TL at birth as a
biomarker of future health risk. TL measurements may thus become a precision tool that help gauge early risk
for later life TL-linked diseases.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10785883
- **Project number:** 1R01ES035760-01
- **Recipient organization:** NEW YORK UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
- **Principal Investigator:** ABRAHAM AVIV
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $359,000
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2024-04-03 → 2029-01-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10785883

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10785883, Impact of Phthalate Exposure on Telomere Biology in Utero (1R01ES035760-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10785883. Licensed CC0.

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