Overview of Working With Telomeres and Cell Viability

1. Overview of Working With Telomeres and Cell Viability ~Steven Artandi Lab at Stanford Suzie Bartram

2. Introduction • Telomeres are nucleotides that cap the ends of chromosomes • Promote Cell viability • Promote Chromosomal Stability • Shorten with cell division and aging because DNA cannot fully replicate the extreme ends • Telomerase is a reverse transcriptase that synthesizes telomere repeats • Expression of this will lengthen and stabilize the telomeres...cells can possibly have unlimited proliferation

3. More Information • Stem cells and other self-renewing tissue cells express telomerase • Usually downregulated with differentiation • Found to be upregulated with some cancers • On Stanford, the Artandi lab researches the molecular and cellular mechanisms by which telomeres and telomerase influences stem cell function and cancers • Telomeres can switch from a capped, protected state to an uncapped state • Process increases as the telomeres become shorter • Activates a DNA damage response leading to apoptosis

4. Ideas...? • Some bacteria have linear chromosomes with telomeres on the ends.... • Work with the regulation of telomerase in bacteria and then apply it to a eukaryotic organism... even a plant or algae? or just make the bacteria more viable.... • Needs more discussion and resources, but example would be to engineer a strain of bacteria that is highly active in expressing telomerase (by inducing this process) and then taking the gene(s) responsible and inserting them into an algae's chromosome and try to get the same results • If successful... implications could eventually target human telomeres

5. Potential Problems/ Difficulties • Telomerase can be downregulated with differentiation, so it could be difficult to try to work with rapidly dividing cells and the downregulation of the wanted product. • Its regulation changes during different stages of the celll cycle • The telomeres of eukaryotic cells replicate by a different function so the process may not transfer directly/at all • Any ideas? Questions? • http://med.stanford.edu/profiles/frdActionServlet?choiceId=facProfile&fid=3848 • http://www.pnas.org/content/104/45/17747 • http://www.sci.sdsu.edu/~smaloy/MicrobialGenetics/topics/chroms-genes-prots/chromosomes.html