Alternative lengthening of telomeres in normal mammalian somatic cells (original) (raw)

1. Catherine M. Watson2,3,
2. Jane R. Noble1,
3. Hilda A. Pickett1,2,
4. Patrick P.L. Tam2,3 and
5. Roger R. Reddel1,2,4
6. 1Cancer Research Unit, Children’s Medical Research Institute, Westmead, New South Wales 2145, Australia;
7. 2Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia;
8. 3Embryology Unit, Children’s Medical Research Institute, Westmead, New South Wales 2145, Australia

Abstract

Some cancers use alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT), a mechanism whereby new telomeric DNA is synthesized from a DNA template. To determine whether normal mammalian tissues have ALT activity, we generated a mouse strain containing a DNA tag in a single telomere. We found that the tagged telomere was copied by other telomeres in somatic tissues but not the germline. The tagged telomere was also copied by other telomeres when introgressed into CAST/EiJ mice, which have telomeres more similar in length to those of humans. We conclude that ALT activity occurs in normal mouse somatic tissues.

• ALT
• recombination
• telomeres

Footnotes

• ↵4 Corresponding author
  E-mail rreddel{at}cmri.org.au

• Article is online at http://www.genesdev.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/gad.205062.112.

• Received September 3, 2012.

• Accepted November 20, 2012.

• Copyright © 2013 by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press

Freely available online through the Genes & Development Open Access option.