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LONG-TERM EFFECTS OF BCG VACCINATION ON TELOMERE LENGTH AND TELOMERASE ACTIVITY

GSE300272 Homo sapiens (human) RNA-seq (gene expression) 20 samples Submitted 2025/07/28 Platform GPL18573
At a glance

RNA-seq (gene expression) · human · 20 samples

What it is
RNA-seq (gene expression)Gene activity measured by sequencing. The summary does not mention single-cell work, so this is most likely bulk: one average per sample, the usual starting point for comparing groups.
Organism
Homo sapiens (human)
Samples
20 samples: 20 samples, each with a distinct title — no replicated groupsGroups are read from the sample names, not from the paper. Check the list below.
Data you can get
A processed table (series matrix) and supplementary files from NCBI; the raw sequencing reads from ENA. Which of these hold counts depends on the study, so check the file list.
Paper
Long-term effects of BCG vaccination on telomere length and telomerase activityiScience · 2025
Summary (written by the submitters)
Vaccination with Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) induces long-term innate immune memory, also called trained immunity, characterized by metabolic and epigenetic changes leading to enhanced responsiveness upon exposure to heterologous pathogens. BCG vaccination was also shown to reduce systemic inflammation. Thus, BCG counteracts two significant immunological changes associated with aging: impaired responsiveness and elevated systemic inflammation.
Read the full summary ↓
However, if and how BCG impacts other aging-related processes in immune cells, such as telomere shortening, remains unexplored. In this study, we investigated the transcriptional impact of BCG training on telomere maintenance-related genes through RNA sequencing and determined average telomere length from whole blood via RT-qPCR before and three months after BCG vaccination in two independent human cohorts. Trained immunity response was measured by ex-vivo cytokine production induced by a heterologous stimulus three months after vaccination compared to baseline. In addition, we examined the effects of BCG on telomerase activation using an in vitro trained immunity model. In vitro BCG training upregulated processes related to telomere maintenance and telomerase localization. In vivo, we observed shorter telomeres three months after BCG vaccination in both studies. Interestingly, the induction of a trained immunity response by BCG was correlated to the change in telomere length: more telomere shortening was observed in trained immunity non-responder individuals, particularly in males. Higher testosterone concentrations before vaccination were linked to more telomere loss. In vitro, BCG training of human monocytes activated the telomerase enzyme, predominantly in females, an effect that was blocked by exogenous testosterone treatment. Overall, this study reports sex-specific long-term impacts of BCG vaccination on telomerase activity and telomere maintenance. These data add to the arguments that BCG vaccination impacts aging mechanisms, which warrants more investigation.
Published in
Long-term effects of BCG vaccination on telomere length and telomerase activity
Bulut O, Koeken VACM, Moorlag SJCFM et al. · iScience 2025 · PMID 40799400 · doi:10.1016/j.isci.2025.113159
This dataset
Open GSE300272 in finder → Find more human RNA-seq datasets →
Download · which file do I need?

Direct links to NCBI and ENA, no account and no request form. Pick by what you want to do: take the small processed table to look, the supplementary files to re-analyse, or the original raw data to start over.

1 · Just have a look

Processed table

The series matrix: one table of values per sample as the submitters processed it. The smallest download, and it opens in Excel or R. Start here to see what the data look like.

Series matrix ↓
2 · Re-analyse it

Supplementary files

The count tables and other files the authors uploaded. Take only the samples you need, or the whole study as GSE300272_RAW.tar (it can run to tens of gigabytes).

All supplementary files ↗ Whole study · RAW.tar ↓
3 · Start from the raw reads

Raw sequencing reads

The original FASTQ files, straight from the sequencer, held at ENA. Large, and you align them yourself, so only choose this if you need to re-process the study from scratch.

Raw reads on ENA ↗

What the files usually look like: For RNA-seq the counts are usually a table among the supplementary files (look for 'counts', 'expression', 'FPKM' or 'TPM' in the file name). The series matrix of a sequencing study is sometimes nearly empty.

Also filed as BioProject PRJNA1280003 and SRA study SRP593548. Searching any of these in the dataset finder brings you back here.

NCBI GEO page ↗ Paper (PMID 40799400) ↗
Study design
20 samples, each with a distinct title — no replicated groups

Any grouping that defines a comparison lives in the sample characteristics, which GEO records separately from the titles.

How we read this: Read from 20 sample titles: 20 distinct titles with little repetition. These groups are guessed from the sample names, not taken from the paper, so check them against the sample list below before relying on them.

Samples in this study
Datasets on a similar topic

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Metadata from NCBI GEO, cached and refreshed periodically — the NCBI page above is authoritative. Downloads link straight to NCBI/ENA; nothing is proxied through BioTransfer.