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?
  choiceIdfacProfilefid3848
• http//www.pnas.org/content/104/45/17747
• http//www.sci.sdsu.edu/smaloy/MicrobialGenetics/
  topics/chroms-genes-prots/chromosomes.html