Telomere maintenance in human B lymphocytes

Human RECQL1 participates in telomere maintenance

A variety of human tumors employ alternative and recombination-mediated lengthening for telomere maintenance (ALT). Human RecQ helicases, such as BLM and WRN, can efficiently unwind alternate/secondary structures during telomere replication and/or recombination. Here, we report a novel role for RECQL1, the most abundant human RecQ helicase but functionally least studied, in telomere maintenance...

Telomere maintenance and human bone marrow failure.

Acquired and congenital aplastic anemias recently have been linked molecularly and pathophysiologically by abnormal telomere maintenance. Telomeres are repeated nucleotide sequences that cap the ends of chromosomes and protect them from damage. Telomeres are eroded with cell division, but in hematopoietic stem cells, maintenance of their length is mediated by telomerase. Accelerated telomere sh...

Maintenance of Peritoneal B-1a Lymphocytes

ATR contributes to telomere maintenance in human cells

Telomere maintenance is essential to preserve genomic stability and involves several telomere-specific proteins as well as DNA replication and repair proteins. The kinase ATR, which has a crucial function in maintaining genome integrity from yeast to human, has been shown to be involved in telomere maintenance in several eukaryotic organisms, including yeast, Arabidopsis and Drosophila. However...

Role of human Ku86 in telomere length maintenance and telomere capping.

The role of Ku86 at telomeres has been extensively studied in various organisms; however, a role for Ku86 at human telomeres was unknown because Ku86 deletion is lethal for human cells. Here, we used small interference RNA to decrease Ku86 protein levels in human cells. An approximately 50% reduction in the amount of Ku86 protein was achieved 72 hours after transfection with Ku86-specific small...