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Research Paper|Volume 8, Issue 1|pp 62—75

Telomere attrition and restoration in the normal teleost Oryzias latipes are linked to growth rate and telomerase activity at each life stage

Hitoshi Hatakeyama1,2, Hiromi Yamazaki1, Ken-Ichi Nakamura2, Naotaka Izumiyama-Shimomura2, Junko Aida2, Hiroetsu Suzuki3, Shuichi Tsuchida1, Masaaki Matsuura4, Kaiyo Takubo2, Naoshi Ishikawa2
  • 1Department of Comprehensive Education in Veterinary Medicine, Nippon Veterinary and Life Science University, Tokyo 180-8602, Japan
  • 2Research Team for Geriatric Diseases, Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology, Tokyo 173-0015, Japan
  • 3Department of Basic Veterinary Medicine, Nippon Veterinary and Life Science University, Tokyo 180-8602, Japan
  • 4Bioinformatics Group, Genome Center, and Division of Cancer Genomics, Cancer Institute, Japanese Foundation for Cancer Research, Tokyo 135-8550, Japan
Received: September 25, 2015Accepted: January 18, 2016Published: January 20, 2016
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.100873

Copyright: © 2016 Hatakeyama et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Telomere shortening occurs when cells divide, both in vitro and in vivo. On the other hand, telomerase is able to maintain telomere length in cells by adding TTAGGG repeats to the ends of telomeres. However, the interrelationships existing among telomere length, telomerase activity and growth in vertebrates remain to be clarified. In the present study we measured telomere length (terminal restriction fragment length), telomerase activity and body growth of Oryzias latipes from the embryo stage until senescence. During the rapid growth stage (age 0–7 months), telomeres shortened in parallel with decreasing telomerase activity. Then, during adolescence (age 7 months – 1 year), telomeres lengthened quickly as growth slowed and telomerase activity increased. In the adult stage (age 1–4 years) characterized by little growth, telomerase activity decreased gradually and telomeres shortened. Our data indicate that telomere attrition and restoration are linked to growth and telomerase activity, and suggest that critical loss of telomere homeostasis is associated with mortality in this animal.