Telomere biology in Metazoa

Gomes, Nuno; Shay, Jerry W.

doi:10.1016/j.febslet.2010.07.031

Cited by 167 publications

(203 citation statements)

References 128 publications

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“…Telomere analyses examining a broad range of species have indicated that the TTAGGG sequence is conserved among deuterostomes (Gomes et al, 2010); the primers used for the qPCR reaction in C. tenuispina were therefore those described for humans in Farzaneh-far et al (2008).…”

Section: Telomere Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long telomeres are associated with clonality in wild populations of the fissiparous starfish Coscinasterias tenuispina

et al. 2015

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Telomeres usually shorten during an organism's lifespan and have thus been used as an aging and health marker. When telomeres become sufficiently short, senescence is induced. The most common method of restoring telomere length is via telomerase reverse transcriptase activity, highly expressed during embryogenesis. However, although asexual reproduction from adult tissues has an important role in the life cycles of certain species, its effect on the aging and fitness of wild populations, as well as its implications for the long-term survival of populations with limited genetic variation, is largely unknown. Here we compare relative telomere length of 58 individuals from four populations of the asexually reproducing starfish Coscinasterias tenuispina. Additionally, 12 individuals were used to compare telomere lengths in regenerating and non-regenerating arms, in two different tissues (tube feet and pyloric cecum). The level of clonality was assessed by genotyping the populations based on 12 specific microsatellite loci and relative telomere length was measured via quantitative PCR. The results revealed significantly longer telomeres in Mediterranean populations than Atlantic ones as demonstrated by the Kruskal-Wallis test (K = 24.17, significant value: P-valueo0.001), with the former also characterized by higher levels of clonality derived from asexual reproduction. Telomeres were furthermore significantly longer in regenerating arms than in non-regenerating arms within individuals (pyloric cecum tissue: Mann-Whitney test, V = 299, P-valueo10 − 6 ; and tube feet tissue Student's t = 2.28, P-value = 0.029). Our study suggests that one of the mechanisms responsible for the long-term somatic maintenance and persistence of clonal populations is telomere elongation.

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Section: Telomere Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long telomeres are associated with clonality in wild populations of the fissiparous starfish Coscinasterias tenuispina

et al. 2015

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“…In sexually reproducing animals such as humans, telomere elongation occurs mainly during embryogenesis and the development of the germ line (7,8). Somatic cells become senescent in the adult when chromosome ends shorten to a critical length to avoid deleterious genome instability and the emergence of cancerous cells (9).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Telomere maintenance and telomerase activity are differentially regulated in asexual and sexual worms

Tan

Rahman

Jaber-Hijazi

et al. 2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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In most sexually reproducing animals, replication and maintenance of telomeres occurs in the germ line and during early development in embryogenesis through the use of telomerase. Somatic cells generally do not maintain telomere sequences, and these cells become senescent in adults as telomeres shorten to a critical length. Some animals reproduce clonally and must therefore require adult somatic mechanisms for maintaining their chromosome ends. Here we study the telomere biology of planarian flatworms with apparently limitless regenerative capacity fueled by a population of highly proliferative adult stem cells. We show that somatic telomere maintenance is different in asexual and sexual animals. Asexual animals maintain telomere length somatically during reproduction by fission or when regeneration is induced by amputation, whereas sexual animals only achieve telomere elongation through sexual reproduction. We demonstrate that this difference is reflected in the expression and alternate splicing of the protein subunit of the telomerase enzyme. Asexual adult planarian stem cells appear to maintain telomere length over evolutionary timescales without passage through a germ-line stage. The adaptations we observe demonstrate indefinite somatic telomerase activity in proliferating stem cells during regeneration or reproduction by fission, and establish planarians as a pertinent model for studying telomere structure, function, and maintenance.

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“…The aging processes are being widely investigated in diverse taxa (Gomes et al, 2010;Baudisch, 2012) and among vertebrates aging of birds is of particular interest. For instance, birds, on average, live three times longer than mammals of equivalent body weight (Holmes et al, 2001).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One of DNA structure parameters correlating with age is telomere length (Gomes et al, 2010). It has been found that telomere length of somatic cells decreases with age in various species of different taxa, for instance: Siberian sturgeon (Simide et al, 2016), turquoise killifish (Ocalewicz, 2013), nine-spine stickleback (Noreikiene et al, 2017), loggerhead sea turtle (Hatase et al, 2008), alligators (Scott et al, 2006;Xu et al, 2009) sand martins, dunlins (Pauliny et al, 2006), donkey, sheep, domestic cat (Gomes et al, 2010) and others.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It has been found that telomere length of somatic cells decreases with age in various species of different taxa, for instance: Siberian sturgeon (Simide et al, 2016), turquoise killifish (Ocalewicz, 2013), nine-spine stickleback (Noreikiene et al, 2017), loggerhead sea turtle (Hatase et al, 2008), alligators (Scott et al, 2006;Xu et al, 2009) sand martins, dunlins (Pauliny et al, 2006), donkey, sheep, domestic cat (Gomes et al, 2010) and others. Many studies of avian telomere length variation with age were done on wild populations of birds (Pauliny et al, 2006;Criscuolo et al, 2009;Heidinger et al, 2012;Herborn et al, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Age-Dependent Variation of Telomere Length and DNA Damage in Chicken

Makarenko

Усатов

Getmantseva

et al. 2017

OnLine Journal of Biological Sciences

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Abstract:Birds are unique models for molecular studies on aging processes and cellular senescence because of their slow rates of aging and comparatively long life spans among homoeothermic animals. The study aimed to examine the relative telomere length and amount of nuclear, mitochondrial DNA lesions in hens of different ages and to find out the correlation between these biomarkers of aging. The study was carried out on hens of crossbreed «High Sex Brown» of different age groups -1, 75, 225, 330, 450 days old. The measurements of telomeres and DNA damage were done in red cells of hens using quantitative PCR technique. We found out that the amount of telomeric DNA reduced significantly with age. Telomere length ratio to control group (1 day old) made up: 0.88±0.08 for 75 days old, 0.73±0.07 for 225 days old, 0.66±0.1 for 330-days old and 0.58±0.12 for 450 days old. The amount of DNA lesions in both genomes had great, age-dependent increase. The relative quantity of lesions per 10 kb detected in the nuclear DNA were as follows: 0.17±0.19 for 75 days old, 0.66±0.21 for 225 days old, 1.02±0.33 for 330-days old and 1.48±0.45 for 450 days old and the relative quantity of lesions in mtDNA were as follows: 0.11±0.06 for 75 days old, 0.84±0.23 for 225 days old, 1.18±0.3 for 330-days old and 1.49±0.35 for 450 days old. The results obtained are of fundamental interest for aging processes, as well as could have an economic value for poultry farming.

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Telomere biology in Metazoa

Cited by 167 publications

References 128 publications

Long telomeres are associated with clonality in wild populations of the fissiparous starfish Coscinasterias tenuispina

Long telomeres are associated with clonality in wild populations of the fissiparous starfish Coscinasterias tenuispina

Telomere maintenance and telomerase activity are differentially regulated in asexual and sexual worms

Age-Dependent Variation of Telomere Length and DNA Damage in Chicken

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