Telomere length heterogeneity in ALT cells is maintained by PML-dependent localization of the BTR complex to telomeres
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Citations
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References
Specific association of human telomerase activity with immortal cells and cancer
Telomere Shortening and Tumor Formation by Mouse Cells Lacking Telomerase RNA
How Shelterin Protects Mammalian Telomeres
Evidence for an alternative mechanism for maintaining telomere length in human tumors and tumor-derived cell lines
A mutant with a defect in telomere elongation leads to senescence in yeast.
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Frequently Asked Questions (16)
Q2. How did the authors test whether PML is required for the ALT pathway?
PML is required for APB formation, telomere heterogeneity, and telomere length maintenance in ALT cellsTo test whether PML is required for the ALT pathway, the authors used CRISPR/Cas9 to delete PML in the ALT-positive cellGENES & DEVELOPMENT 651lines U2OS and GM847.
Q3. What is the role of PML in telomere maintenance?
The BTR complex is required for C-circle formation and ALT-mediated telomere maintenanceA likely mechanism by which PML enables telomere maintenance and C-circle formation in ALT cells is through the localization and stabilization of APB factors to telomeres.
Q4. What is the role of the fusion protein in telomeres?
A fusion protein between RMI1, which can recruit the rest of the BTR complex, and the DNA-binding domain of Teb1 (TebDB), which has been used to tether proteins to telomeres in mammalian cells (Sarthy et al. 2009) was generated and stably expressed under a doxycycline inducible promoter in PML-null, BTR-null, and parental U2OS cells.
Q5. What is the role of BLM in telomeres in cancer cells?
BLM also plays an important role at telomeres in cells that do not use ALT to maintain their telomeres, acting to facilitate telomere replication and suppressing rapid telomere deletions (Stavropoulos et al.
Q6. What is the role of PML in ALT?
While the function of the BTR complex appears to be conserved, the requirement of PML for telomere elongation seems to be a unique feature of ALT in human cells.
Q7. How did the authors determine that PML was required for the formation of C-circles?
by establishing a native FISH protocol to assay for single-strand telomeric DNA on a single-cell basis, the authors determined that PML was required for the formation of C-circles.
Q8. What is the mechanism of telomere elongation in a mamma?
In addition, ALT-positive mammalian cells also display RAD51-independent type II-like mechanisms of telomere elongation characterized by telomere synthesis in the G2/M phase of the cell cycle (Dilley et al.
Q9. What was the primary antibody used in this study?
Primary antibodies used in this study were as follows: PML (Santa Cruz BIotechnology PGM3), BLM (Bethyl A300-110A-M), Sp100 (Abcam ab43151), RPA (Thermo Scientific PA1-23299), Flag (ABM G191 and Sigma F7425), GFP (Invitrogen A6455), Myc (Cell Signaling 2276), TRF2 (Millipore 05-521 and Novus Biologicals NB110-57130), RMI1 (Novus Biologicals NB1001720), and HA (clone 16b12, Fisher Scientific NC9378714).
Q10. What is the role of PML in the stability of C-circles?
A uniform decrease in C-circles would suggest that PML is required for the production of C-circles and confirm their link with ALT activity, while a nonuniform decrease might suggest a role for PML in the stability of these species and that, like T-SCEs, C-circles may not be as directly connected with ALT telomere extension as previously thought.
Q11. What is the rate of telomere shortening in PML-null?
Telomere restriction fragment (TRF) analysis showed that, in contrast to parental U2OS cells, PML-null cells presented progressive telomere shortening at a rate of ∼30–80 bp per division, which is consistent with an estimated rate of erosion of ∼50–200 bp per division caused by the end replication problem (Allsopp et al.
Q12. How long did PML-null cells survive in culture?
Despite the lack of APBs, all of the PML-null cell lines had no significant change in long-term viability and were able to be propagated for >100 d in culture.
Q13. How did the authors determine the PML function in ALT cells?
Using these cells, the authors next interrogated the presence of other ALT hallmarks, finding that PML-null cells display a marked decrease in C-circle levels.
Q14. What is the role of BLM in telomere lengthening?
overexpression of BLM or dysregulation of the BTR complex induced by the loss of FANCM in ALT-positive cells has been shown to induce up-regulation of ALT-associated phenotypes, suggesting that this factor is limiting for the ALT pathway and led to the proposal that the BTR complex acts in ALT to dissolve recombination intermediates into noncrossover products, which results in telomere lengthening (Sobinoff et al.
Q15. What is the role of PML in ALT telomere maintenance?
these data suggest that PML is necessary in ALT telomere maintenance for the efficient recruitment of BLM to telomeres, where it can drive ALT phenotypes.
Q16. What is the role of PML in ALT telomeres?
These data show that recruitment of the BTR complex to telomeres is sufficient to restore ALT activity in PML-null cells and suggests that thepivotal role for PML at ALT telomeres is to recruit the BTR complex.