Wenjing Liu
Yongbo Guo
Hailin Zhang
Dewei Jiang
Ying Luo
Rong Liu
Ceshi Chen
a Key Laboratory of Animal Models and Human Disease Mechanisms of Chinese Academy of Sciences & Yunnan Province, National Resource Center for Non-Human Primates, Kunming Primate Research Center, National Research Facility for Phenotypic & Genetic Analysis of Model Animals (Primate Facility), Kunming Institute of Zoology, Kunming, Yunnan 650201, China;
b Kunming College of Life Sciences, University of Chinese Academy Sciences, Kunming, Yunnan 650204, China;
c State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, Yunnan 650223, China;
d Laboratory of Molecular Genetics of Aging & Tumor, Medical Faculty, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming, Yunnan 650500, China
Funds: This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFC2000400 and 2020YFA0112300 to C. Chen), National Natural Science Foundation of China (81830087 and 31771516 to C. Chen), project of Innovative Research Team of Yunnan Province (2019HC005), and CAS “light of West China” Program (xbzg-zdsys-201909).
Received Date: 2021-03-13
Accepted Date:2021-06-04
Rev Recd Date:2021-05-27
Publish Date:2021-07-20
Abstract
Abstract
The use of tree shrews as experimental animals for biomedical research is a new practice. Several recent studies suggest that tree shrews are suitable for studying cancers, including breast cancer, glioblastoma, lung cancer, and hepatocellular carcinoma. However, the telomeres and the telomerase of tree shrews have not been studied to date. Here, we characterize telomeres and telomerase in tree shrews. The telomere length of tree shrews is approximately 23 kb, which is longer than that of primates and shorter than that of mice, and it is extended in breast tumor tissues according to Southern blot and flow-fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) analyses. Tree shrew spleen, bone marrow, testis, ovary, and uterus show high telomerase activities, which are increased in breast tumor tissues by telomeric repeat amplification protocol assays. The telomere length becomes shorter, and telomerase activity decreases with age. The tree shrew TERT and TERC are more highly similar to primates than to rodents. These findings lay a solid foundation for using tree shrews to study aging and cancers.Keywords: Tree shrews,
Telomere,
TERT,
TERC,
Breast cancer
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