The age of heterozygous telomerase mutant parents influences the adult phenotype of their offspring irrespective of genotype in zebrafish.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Mutations in proteins involved in telomere maintenance lead to a range of human diseases, including dyskeratosis congenita, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and cancer. Telomerase functions to add telomeric repeats back onto the ends of chromosomes, however non-canonical roles of components of telomerase have recently been suggested.

Methods

Here we use a zebrafish telomerase mutant which harbours a nonsense mutation in tert to investigate the adult phenotypes of fish derived from heterozygous parents of different ages. Furthermore we use whole genome sequencing data to estimate average telomere lengths.

Results

We show that homozygous offspring from older heterozygotes exhibit signs of body wasting at a younger age than those of younger parents, and th

SUBMITTER: Scahill CM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5840683 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature