The hallmarks of cancer.

Human blastocyst-derived, pluripotent cell lines are described that have normal karyotypes, express high levels of telomerase activity, and express cell surface markers that characterize primate embryonic stem cells but do not characterize other early lineages. After undifferentiated proliferation in vitro for 4 to 5 months, these cells still maintained the developmental potential to form trophoblast and derivatives of all three embryonic germ layers, including gut epithelium (endoderm); cartilage, bone, smooth muscle, and striated muscle (mesoderm); and neural epithelium, embryonic ganglia, and stratified squamous epithelium (ectoderm). These cell lines should be useful in human developmental biology, drug discovery, and transplantation medicine.

Embryonic Stem Cell Lines Derived from Human Blastocysts

Synthesis of DNA at chromosome ends by telomerase may be necessary for indefinite proliferation of human cells. A highly sensitive assay for measuring telomerase activity was developed. In cultured cells representing 18 different human tissues, 98 of 100 immortal and none of 22 mortal populations were positive for telomerase. Similarly, 90 of 101 biopsies representing 12 human tumor types and none of 50 normal somatic tissues were positive. Normal ovaries and testes were positive, but benign tumors such as fibroids were negative. Thus, telomerase appears to be stringently repressed in normal human somatic tissues but reactivated in cancer, where immortal cells are likely required to maintain tumor growth.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/266/5193/2011.full.pdf

Specific association of human telomerase activity with immortal cells and cancer

Normal human cells undergo a finite number of cell divisions and ultimately enter a nondividing state called replicative senescence. It has been proposed that telomere shortening is the molecular clock that triggers senescence. To test this hypothesis, two telomerase-negative normal human cell types, retinal pigment epithelial cells and foreskin fibroblasts, were transfected with vectors encoding the human telomerase catalytic subunit. In contrast to telomerase-negative control clones, which exhibited telomere shortening and senescence, telomerase-expressing clones had elongated telomeres, divided vigorously, and showed reduced staining for β-galactosidase, a biomarker for senescence. Notably, the telomerase-expressing clones have a normal karyotype and have already exceeded their normal life-span by at least 20 doublings, thus establishing a causal relationship between telomere shortening and in vitro cellular senescence. The ability to maintain normal human cells in a phenotypically youthful state could have important applications in research and medicine.

/pdf/extension-of-life-span-by-introduction-of-telomerase-into-4ucjiz7vl1.pdf

Extension of life-span by introduction of telomerase into normal human cells

Beckman, Kenneth B., and Bruce N. Ames. The Free Radical Theory of Aging Matures. Physiol. Rev. 78: 547–581, 1998. — The free radical theory of aging, conceived in 1956, has turned 40 and is rapidl...

/pdf/the-free-radical-theory-of-aging-matures-3b861ahk8h.pdf

The Free Radical Theory of Aging Matures

When human fibroblasts from different donors are grown in vitro, only a small fraction of the variation in their finite replicative capacity is explained by the chronological age of the donor. Because we had previously shown that telomeres, the terminal guanine-rich sequences of chromosomes, shorten throughout the life-span of cultured cells, we wished to determine whether variation in initial telomere length would account for the unexplained variation in replicative capacity. Analysis of cells from 31 donors (aged 0-93 yr) indicated relatively weak correlations between proliferative ability and donor age (m = -0.2 doubling per yr; r = -0.42; P = 0.02) and between telomeric DNA and donor age (m = -15 base pairs per yr; r = -0.43; P = 0.02). However, there was a striking correlation, valid over the entire age range of the donors, between replicative capacity and initial telomere length (m = 10 doublings per kilobase pair; r = 0.76; P = 0.004), indicating that cell strains with shorter telomeres underwent significantly fewer doublings than those with longer telomeres. These observations suggest that telomere length is a biomarker of somatic cell aging in humans and are consistent with a causal role for telomere loss in this process. We also found that fibroblasts from Hutchinson-Gilford progeria donors had short telomeres, consistent with their reduced division potential in vitro. In contrast, telomeres from sperm DNA did not decrease with age of the donor, suggesting that a mechanism for maintaining telomere length, such as telomerase expression, may be active in germ-line tissue.

https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/89/21/10114.full.pdf

Telomere length predicts replicative capacity of human fibroblasts.

The proliferative life-span of the stem cells that sustain hematopoiesis throughout life is not known. It has been proposed that the sequential loss of telomeric DNA from the ends of human chromosomes with each somatic cell division eventually reaches a critical point that triggers cellular senescence. We now show that candidate human stem cells with a CD34+CD38lo phenotype that were purified from adult bone marrow have shorter telomeres than cells from fetal liver or umbilical cord blood. We also found that cells produced in cytokine-supplemented cultures of purified precursor cells show a proliferation-associated loss of telomeric DNA. These findings strongly suggest that the proliferative potential of most, if not all, hematopoietic stem cells is limited and decreases with age, a concept that has widespread implications for models of normal and abnormal hematopoiesis as well as gene therapy.

/pdf/evidence-for-a-mitotic-clock-in-human-hematopoietic-stem-8ii1dcy958.pdf

Evidence for a mitotic clock in human hematopoietic stem cells: loss of telomeric DNA with age

Reconstitution of telomerase activity in normal human cells leads to elongation of telomeres and extended replicative life span

The telomere hypothesis of cellular aging.

The loss of telomeric DNA may serve as a mitotic clock which signals cell senescence and exit from cell cycle. Telomerase, and enzyme which synthesizes telomeric repeats de novo, is required to maintain telomere lengths. In humans, significant telomerase activity has been found in cells with essentially unlimited replicative potential such as reproductive cells in ovaries and testes, immortal cell lines and cancer tissues, but not in most normal somatic cells or tissues. We have now examined telomerase expression in subpopulations of hematopoietic cells from adult human bone marrow using a sensitive polymerase chain reaction-based telomeric repeat amplification protocol. Telomerase activity was found at low levels in the highly enriched primitive hematopoietic cells (CD34+CD71loCD45RAlo) and was increased transiently when these cells were cultured in the presence of a mixture of cytokines. In contrast, the early progenitors (CD34+CD71+) expressed telomerase activity at a higher level which was subsequently downregulated in response to cytokines. Telomerase activity remained low in the more mature CD34-cells upon exposure to cytokines. Taken together, our results suggest that telomerase is expressed at a basal level in all hematopoietic cell populations examined, is induced in a primitive subset of hematopoietic progenitor cells and is downregulated upon further proliferation and differentiation of these cells. We have previously observed telomere shortening in cytokine-stimulated primitive hematopoietic cells. The low and transient activation of telomerase activity described here thus appears insufficient to maintain telomere lengths in cultured hematopoietic cells.

Homayoun Vaziri

Papers

Telomere length predicts replicative capacity of human fibroblasts.

Evidence for a mitotic clock in human hematopoietic stem cells: loss of telomeric DNA with age

Reconstitution of telomerase activity in normal human cells leads to elongation of telomeres and extended replicative life span

The telomere hypothesis of cellular aging.

Differential expression of telomerase activity in hematopoietic progenitors from adult human bone marrow.