The mechanisms that maintain the stability of chromosome ends have broad impact on genome integrity in all eukaryotes. Budding yeast is a premier organism for telomere studies. Many fundamental concepts of telomere and telomerase function were first established in yeast and then extended to other organisms. We present a comprehensive review of yeast telomere biology that covers capping, replication, recombination, and transcription. We think of it as yeast telomeres—soup to nuts.

No abstract

During telomere replication in yeast, chromosome ends acquire an S-phase-specific overhang of the guanosine-rich strand. Here it is shown that in cells lacking Ku, a heterodimeric protein involved in nonhomologous DNA end joining, these overhangs are present throughout the cell cycle. In vivo cross-linking experiments demonstrated that Ku is bound to telomeric DNA. These results show that Ku plays a direct role in establishing a normal DNA end structure on yeast chromosomes, conceivably by functioning as a terminus-binding factor. Because Ku-mediated DNA end joining involving telomeres would result in chromosome instability, our data also suggest that Ku has a distinct function when bound to telomeres.

Telomeric DNA of mammalian chromosomes consists of several kilobase-pairs of tandemly repeated sequences with a terminal 3' overhang in single-stranded form. Maintaining the integrity of these repeats is essential for cell survival; telomere attrition is associated with chromosome instability and cell senescence, whereas stabilization of telomere length correlates with the immortalization of somatic cells. Telomere elongation is carried out by telomerase, an RNA-dependent DNA polymerase which adds single-stranded TAGGGT repeats to the 3' ends of chromosomes. While proteins that associate with single-stranded telomeric repeats can influence tract lengths in yeast, equivalent factors have not yet been identified in vertebrates. Here, it is shown that the heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein A1 participates in telomere biogenesis. A mouse cell line deficient in A1 expression harbours telomeres that are shorter than those of a related cell line expressing normal levels of A1. Restoring A1 expression in A1-deficient cells increases telomere length. Telomere elongation is also observed upon introduction of exogenous UP1, the amino-terminal fragment of A1. While both A1 and UP1 bind to vertebrate single-stranded telomeric repeats directly and with specificity in vitro, only UP1 can recover telomerase activity from a cell lysate. These findings establish A1/UP1 as the first single-stranded DNA binding protein involved in mammalian telomere biogenesis and suggest possible mechanisms by which UP1 may modulate telomere length.

The strand of telomeric DNA that runs 5'-3' toward a chromosome end is typically G rich. Telomerase-generated G tails are expected at one end of individual DNA molecules. Saccharomyces telomeres acquire TG1-3 tails late in S phase. Moreover, the telomeres of linear plasmids can interact when the TG1-3 tails are present. Molecules that mimic the structures predicted for telomere replication intermediates were generated in vitro. These in vitro generated molecules formed telomere-telomere interactions similar to those on molecules isolated from yeast, but only if both ends that interacted had a TG1-3 tail. Moreover, TG1-3 tails were generated in vivo in cells lacking telomerase. These data suggest a new step in telomere maintenance, cell cycle-regulated degradation of the C1-3A strand, which can generate a potential substrate for telomerase and telomere-binding proteins at every telomere.

The predicted secondary structure of the TLC1 RNA of S. cerevisiae reveals a distinct folding pattern featuring well-separated but conserved functional elements. The predicted structure now allows for a detailed and rationally designed study to the structure-function relationships within the telomerase RNP-complex in a genetically tractable system.

In virtually all eukaryotic organisms, telomeric DNA is composed of a variable number of short direct repeats. While the primary sequence of telomeric repeats has been determined for a great variety of species, the actual physical DNA structure at the ends of a bona fide metazoan chromosome with a centromere is unknown. It is shown here that an overhang of the strand forming the 3′ ends of the chromosomes, the G‐rich strand, is found at mammalian chromosome ends. Moreover, on at least some telomeres, the overhangs are ≥ 45 bases long. Such surprisingly long overhangs were present on chromosomes derived from fully transformed tissue culture cells and normal G0‐arrested peripheral leukocytes. Thus, irrespective of whether the cells were actively dividing or arrested, a very similar terminal DNA arrangement was found. These data suggest that the ends of mammalian and possibly all vertebrate chromosomes consist of an overhang of the G‐rich strand and that these overhangs may be considerably larger than previously anticipated.

The precise DNA arrangement at chromosomal ends and the proteins involved in its maintenance are of crucial importance for genome stability. For the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, this constitutive DNA configuration has remained unknown. We demonstrate here that Gtails of 12-14 bases are present outside of S phase on normal yeast telomeres. Furthermore, the Mre11p protein is essential for the proper establishment of this constitutive end-structure. However, the timing of extended G-tails occurring during S phase is not affected in strains lacking Mre11p. Thus, G-tails are present on yeast chromosomes throughout the cell cycle and the MRX complex is required for their normal establishment. The physical ends of eukaryotic chromosomes, the telomeres, have a very conserved structure and are essential for genome stability (for review, see Blackburn 2001;Chakhparonian and Wellinger 2003). Short, direct DNA repeats constitute the underlying telomeric DNA and the strand running 5Ј to 3Ј toward the end of the chromosomes is usually rich in guanines (the G-rich strand). Lagging-strand synthesis always occurs on this G-rich strand and will leave a short gap at the 5Ј end of the newly synthesized C-rich strand. This gap cannot be filled in by repair, and a 3Ј G-rich overhang, called G-tail, remains. On the other end, leading-strand synthesis is thought to produce a blunt extremity. However, studies of the terminal DNA arrangement in a variety of organisms suggest that a G-tail is a conserved motif for all telomeres (Chakhparonian and Wellinger 2003). Thus, the question arises as to how the blunt-ended DNA ends generated by leading-strand synthesis are converted into ends with a G-tail.Studies in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae have shown that its telomeres acquire detectable G-tails late in S phase, after conventional replication (Wellinger et al. 1993a,b). Moreover, at least on the ends of a linear plasmid, G-tails occur on both, leading-and laggingstrand ends . Surprisingly, these S-phase-specific G-tails can also be detected in cells lacking telomerase, the main activity responsible for replicating telomeric G-strands (Dionne and Wellinger 1996). Collectively, these results suggest that the blunt end left after completion of leading-strand synthesis is processed into an end with a G-tail, presumably by nuclease/helicase activities . Analyses of the requirements to establish a normal telomeric DNA endstructure are hampered by the fact that for wild-type yeast cells, the precise DNA arrangement outside of S phase is unknown.Recent studies on the Mre11p/Rad50p/Xrs2p (MRX) proteins, an evolutionarily conserved complex involved in a number of processes in mitosis and meiosis, revealed that this complex may play a key role in telomere length maintenance in humans, plants, and yeasts (for review, see Haber 1998; D'Amours and Jackson 2002). Yeast cells harboring a deletion of any one of these genes are viable, but display shortened telomeric repeat tracts (Kironmai and Muniyappa 1997; Boulton and Jackson 1998). The Mre11p p...