| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 微生物學研究所 === 90 === In the yeast Saccharomyces, telomere is normally synthesized by telomerase. When the telomerase pathway is blocked, a subset of the cells survive by maintaining their telomere through alternate lengthing of telomeres (ALT) mechanism. The structure of telomeres in Saccharomyces survivors is similar to that of human cell lines that maintain telomeric DNA by this telomerase independent alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT) pathway. The overall objective of this study is to elucidate the molecular mechanism of telomere-telomere recombination in telomerase minus yeast. Our data indicates the telomere lengthening caused by telomere-telomere recombination happens within a very short period of time .
By using 2-dimensional gel analysis and a in vitro ALT assay system, here we show that circular telomere fragment are generated in dying cells, which might promote tandem repeat telomere lengthening. Thus, a mechanistic understanding of the recombinational mechanism that yields survivors in Saccharomyces may be relevant to telomerase-independent maintenance of telomeres in cancer cells.
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