Project description:Mammalian telomeres are formed by tandem repeats of the TTAGGG sequence, and shorten with each round of cell division in the absence of telomerase. Telomere shortening and dysfunction has been implicated in the pathology of several age-related diseases and premature ageing syndromes. Telomerase is important for telomere length maintenance. Telomerase RNA component, also known as TERC, is a component of telomerase. Terc knockout leads to telomerase deficiency and telomere shortening. Heterozygous telomerase-deficient (Terc+/-) mice were housed and bred for homozygous generation. ESC lines were generated with high efficiency from wild-type (WT, Terc+/+), heterozygous (Het, Terc+/-) and early- to late-generation (G1, G3 and G4) Terc-/- mouse blastocysts. Telomeres were shorter in Terc+/- ES cells than in WT ES cells, and further shortened from G1 to G4 Terc-/- ES cells. We took advantage of ES cell lines with various telomere lengths to investigate roles of telomere length on differentiation capacity of ES cells. We found that telomere length, but not telomerase activity, is required for differentiation of ES cells into epidermis. We performed microarray analysis to investigate differential gene expression profile at genome-wide levels between WT and G3/G4 Terc-/- (KO) mouse ES cells and during differentiation in vitro of WT and G4 Terc-/- mouse ES cells.
Project description:We asked whether telomere shortening impairs differentiation of ESCs into germ cell lineage. Terc-/- ESCs were used to investigate the effects of short telomeres on germ cell specification by in vitro differentiation. Short telomeres greatly reduced induction of PGCLCs from ESCs. Mechanistically, short telomeres resulted in excessive chromatin accessibility, which in turn activated the genes regulated by chromatin. Notably, Fst overexpression reduced BMP-Smad signaling and thus induction of PGCLCs, meanwhile upregulation of MAPK signaling pathway increase somatic lineage differentiation in short telomeres sampels. Moreover, knockin of Terc gene by CRISPR/Cas9 in Terc-/- ESCs restored telomere length and normal gene expression profile, and rescued PGCLC induction, revealing important roles of telomeres in PGC fate decision.
Project description:We asked whether telomere shortening impairs differentiation of ESCs into germ cell lineage. Terc-/- ESCs were used to investigate the effects of short telomeres on germ cell specification by in vitro differentiation. Short telomeres greatly reduced induction of PGCLCs from ESCs. Mechanistically, short telomeres resulted in excessive chromatin accessibility, which in turn activated the genes regulated by chromatin. Notably, Fst overexpression reduced BMP-Smad signaling and thus induction of PGCLCs, meanwhile upregulation of MAPK signaling pathway increase somatic lineage differentiation in short telomeres sampels. Moreover, knockin of Terc gene by CRISPR/Cas9 in Terc-/- ESCs restored telomere length and normal gene expression profile, and rescued PGCLC induction, revealing important roles of telomeres in PGC fate decision.
Project description:We used microarrays to analyze the prevalence of signalling induced by acute telomere dysfunction (as induced by TRF2DBDM expression = Dataset 1) and in TERC- compared to TERC+ HCC (Dataset 2). Keywords: acute telomere dysfunction, hepatocellular cancer
Project description:The telomerase RNA component (TERC) is a critical determinant of cellular self renewal. Poly(A)-specific ribonuclease (PARN) is required for post-transcriptional maturation of TERC. PARN mutations lead to incomplete 3â² end processing and increased destruction of nascent TERC RNA transcripts, resulting in telomerase deficiency and telomere diseases. Here, we determined that overexpression of TERC increased telomere length in PARN-deficient cells and hypothesized that decreasing post-transcriptional 3â² oligo-adenylation of TERC would counteract the deleterious effects of PARN mutations. Inhibition of the noncanonical poly(A) polymerase PAP-associated domainâcontaining 5 (PAPD5) increased TERC levels in PARN-mutant patient cells. PAPD5 inhibition was also associated with increases in TERC stability, telomerase activity, and telomere elongation. Our results demonstrate that manipulating post-transcriptional regulatory pathways may be a potential strategy to reverse the molecular hallmarks of telomere disease. mRNA sequencing of induced pluripotent stem cells and 293 cell line.
Project description:The telomerase RNA component (TERC) is a critical determinant of cellular self renewal. Poly(A)-specific ribonuclease (PARN) is required for post-transcriptional maturation of TERC. PARN mutations lead to incomplete 3′ end processing and increased destruction of nascent TERC RNA transcripts, resulting in telomerase deficiency and telomere diseases. Here, we determined that overexpression of TERC increased telomere length in PARN-deficient cells and hypothesized that decreasing post-transcriptional 3′ oligo-adenylation of TERC would counteract the deleterious effects of PARN mutations. Inhibition of the noncanonical poly(A) polymerase PAP-associated domain–containing 5 (PAPD5) increased TERC levels in PARN-mutant patient cells. PAPD5 inhibition was also associated with increases in TERC stability, telomerase activity, and telomere elongation. Our results demonstrate that manipulating post-transcriptional regulatory pathways may be a potential strategy to reverse the molecular hallmarks of telomere disease.
Project description:Telomere erosion causes cell mortality, suggesting that longer telomeres allow greater number of cell division. In telomerase-positive human cancer cells, however, telomeres are often kept shorter than the surrounding normal tissues. Recently, we have shown that telomere elongation in cancer cells represses innate immune genes and promotes their differentiation in vivo. This implies that short telomeres contribute to cancer malignancy, but it is unclear how such genetic repression is caused by long telomeres. Here we report that telomeric repeat-containing RNA (TERRA) induces genome-wide alteration of gene expression in telomere-elongated cancer cells in vivo. Using three different cell lines, we found that G4 forming oligonucleotide repressed innate immune genes in vivo 3D culture conditions. Most of the suppressed genes belonged to innate immune system categories and were upregulated in various cancers. We propose that TERRA G4 counteracts cancer malignancy through suppression of innate immune genes. Six samples are G4 oligo-transfected cells (PC-3/(uuaggg)^4, PC-3/AS1411, HBC4/(uuaggg)^4, HBC4/AS1411, MKN74/(uuaggg)^4 and MKN74/AS1411), and the other six samples are control oligo-transfected cells.
Project description:Somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) represent two major approaches for somatic cell reprogramming. However, little attention has been paid to the ability of these two strategies in rejuvenating cells from donors with aging associated syndrome. Here, we utilized telomerase deficient (Terc-/-) mice to probe this question. SCNT-derived embryonic stem cells (ntESCs) and iPSCs were successfully derived from second generation (G2) and third generation (G3) of Terc-/- mice, and ntESCs showed better differentiation potential and self-renewal ability. Telomeres lengthened extensively in cloned embryos while remained or slightly increased in the process of iPSCs induction. Furthermore, G3 ntESCs exhibited improvement of telomere capping function as evidenced by decreased signal free ends and chromosome end-to-end fusion events. In contrast, there was a further decline of telomere capping function in G3 iPSCs. In addition to telomere dysfunction, mitochondria function was severely impaired in G3 iPSCs as evidenced by oxygen consumption rate (OCR) decline, reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation and dramatically increased mitochondria genome mutations while these deficiencies were greatly mitigated in G3 ntESCs. Our data proved the principle that SCNT-mediated reprogramming appears more superior than transcription factors induced reprogramming in terms of the resetting of telomere quality and mitochondria function, and thus, providing valuable information for further improvement of transcription factors mediated reprogramming. We compared the gene expression profile of G3 Terc-/- ntES and G3 Terc-/- iPS. Three biological repeats were included for each cell line.
Project description:Telomere dysfunctional CMP/GMP have deregulated pathways that are associated with DNA damage signaling We compared differentially expressed genes in the G4/G5 CMP relative to the G0 control to identify pathways that may affect CMP differentiation. Bone marrow CMP and GMP cells were sorted from two paired pools of G0 TERTER/+ or G4/G5 TERTER/ER mice (5,000-20,000 cells per sample) using the Influx Cell Sorter. Every paired pool includes CMP or GMP sorted from 4 age and gender matched G0 or G4/G5 mice. RNA from the respective sorted cells was extracted using Trizol (Ambion) and profiled on 2100 Bioanalyzer (Agilent). Gene expression profiling was performed at the Sequencing and Non-coding RNA Program at MD Anderson Cancer Center. Briefly, the GeneChip® 3 IVT Express Kit (Affymetrix) was used to generate biotin-labeled cRNA, which were purified and fragmented, before target hybridization on the GeneChip® Mouse Genome 430 2.0 Array (Affymetrix) according to the manufacturer's instructions. Affymetrix raw data (CEL files) were normalized using Affymetrix Microarray Suite (MAS) version 5.0 using a TGT=100. Paired pools used in the study were: CMP pool 1: G0-1 and G4/5-1 CMP pool 2: G0-2 and G4/G5-2 GMP pool 1: G0-1 and G4/G5-1 GMP pool 2: G0-2 and G4/G5-2