Counter, C. M., Avilion, A. A., Lefeuvre, C. E., Stewart, N. G., Greider, C. W., Harley, C. B., Bacchetti, S. (May 1992) Telomere shortening associated with chromosome instability is arrested in immortal cells which express telomerase activity. Embo Journal, 11 (5). pp. 1921-1929. ISSN 0261-4189
Abstract
Loss of telomeric DNA during cell proliferation may play a role in ageing and cancer. Since telomeres permit complete replication of eukaryotic chromosomes and protect their ends from recombination, we have measured telomere length, telomerase activity and chromosome rearrangements in human cells before and after transformation with SV40 or Ad5. In all mortal populations, telomeres shortened by almost-equal-to 65 bp/generation during the lifespan of the cultures. When transformed cells reached crisis, the length of the telomeric TTAGGG repeats was only almost-equal-to 1.5 kbp and many dicentric chromosomes were observed. In immortal cells, telomere length and frequency of dicentric chromosomes stabilized after crisis. Telomerase activity was not detectable in control or extended lifespan populations but was present in immortal populations. These results suggest that chromosomes with short (TTAGGG)n tracts are recombinogenic, critically shortened telomeres may be incompatible with cell proliferation and stabilization of telomere length by telomerase may be required for immortalization.
| Item Type: | Paper |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | CHROMOSOME REARRANGEMENTS IMMORTALITY TELOMERASE TELOMERES TERMINAL TRANSFERASE-ACTIVITY HUMAN-FIBROBLASTS SIMIAN VIRUS-40 CELLULAR SENESCENCE DNA TETRAHYMENA SEQUENCE REPEAT YEAST RIBONUCLEOPROTEIN |
| Subjects: | bioinformatics > genomics and proteomics > genetics & nucleic acid processing > protein structure, function, modification > protein types > enzymes > telomerase bioinformatics > genomics and proteomics > genetics & nucleic acid processing > DNA, RNA structure, function, modification > telomeres |
| CSHL Authors: | |
| Communities: | CSHL labs > Greider lab |
| Depositing User: | Matt Covey |
| Date: | May 1992 |
| Date Deposited: | 01 Oct 2015 15:14 |
| Last Modified: | 01 Oct 2015 15:14 |
| PMCID: | PMC556651 |
| URI: | https://repository.cshl.edu/id/eprint/31789 |
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