Frequently cutting restriction enzymes: Clearing the fog to see the ends

María I.  Vaquero-Sedas; Miguel A.  Vega-Palas

doi:10.4236/ajmb.2013.31007

María I. Vaquero-Sedas, Miguel A. Vega-Palas

Abstract: Telomeres, which are found at the ends of eukaryotic chromosomes, are composed of tandem arrays of repetitive sequences and safeguard genomic stability. Previous studies have revealed that telomeric repeats are also present at internal chromosomal loci in many eukaryotes. However, the biological role of these interstitial telomeric sequences (ITSs) remains unknown. The integrity of telomeric length and chromatin structure is required for telomere stability. However, the study of these telomeric features can be impeded by the presence of ITSs. Frequently cutting restriction enzymes have been revealed to be very useful tools for the study of the length and chromatin structure of telomeres independent of the presence of ITSs.

Keywords: Telomeric Length; Telomeric Chromatin Structure; Frequently Cutting Restriction Enzymes; Arabidopsis thaliana

Cite this paper: Vaquero-Sedas, M. and Vega-Palas, M. (2013) Frequently cutting restriction enzymes: Clearing the fog to see the ends. American Journal of Molecular Biology, 3, 59-61. doi: 10.4236/ajmb.2013.31007.

References

[1] Blackburn, E. (2005) Telomeres and telomerase: Their mechanisms of action and the effects of altering their functions. FEBS Letters, 579, 859-862. doi:10.1016/j.febslet.2004.11.036

[2] Cech, T. (2004) Beginning to understand the end of the chromosome. Cell, 43, 405-413.

[3] Greider, C. (2006) Telomerase RNA levels limit the telomere length equilibrium. Cold Spring Harbour Symposium on Quantitative Biology, 71, 225-229. doi:10.1101/sqb.2006.71.063

[4] Blasco, M. (2007) The epigenetic regulation of mammalian telomeres. Nature Reviews of Genetics, 8, 299-309. doi:10.1038/nrg2047

[5] Lundblad, V. and Blackburn, E. (1993) An alternative pathway for yeast telomere maintenance rescues est1 senescence. Cell, 73, 347-360. doi:10.1016/0092-8674(93)90234-H

[6] Riha, K., McKnight, T., Griffing, L. and Shippen, D. (2001) Living with genome instability: plant responses to telomere dysfunction. Science, 291, 1797-1780. doi:10.1126/science.1057110

[7] Shakirov, E., Surovtseva, Y., Osbun, N. and Shippen, D. (2005) The Arabidopsis Pot1 and Pot2 proteins function in telomere length homeostasis and chromosome end protection. Molecular and Cellular Biology, 25, 7725-7753. doi:10.1128/MCB.25.17.7725-7733.2005

[8] Vespa, L., Couvillion, M., Spangler, E. and Shippen, D. (2005) ATM and ATR make distinct contributions to chromosome end protection and the maintenance of telomeric DNA in Arabidopsis. Genes and Development, 19, 2111-2115. doi:10.1101/gad.1333805

[9] Aubert, G., Hills, M. and Lansdorp, P. (2012) Telomere length measurement-caveats and a critical assessment of the available technologies and tools. Mutation Research, 730, 59-67. doi:10.1016/j.mrfmmm.2011.04.003

[10] Gámez-Arjona, F., López-López, C., Vaquero-Sedas, M. and Vega-Palas, M. (2010) On the organization of the nucleosomes associated with telomeric sequences. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta, 1803, 1058-1061. doi:10.1016/j.bbamcr.2010.03.021

[11] Faravelli, M., Azzalin, C., Bertoni, L., Chernova, O., Attolini, C., Mondello, C. and Giulotto E. (2002) Molecular organization of internal telomeric sequences in Chinese hamster chromosomes. Gene, 283, 11-16. doi:10.1016/S0378-1119(01)00877-0

[12] Vaquero-Sedas, M. and Vega-Palas, M. (2011) On the chromatin structure of eukaryotic telomeres. Epigenetics, 6, 1055-1558. doi:10.4161/epi.6.9.16845

[13] Vaquero-Sedas, M., Gámez-Arjona, F. and Vega-Palas, M. (2011) Arabidopsis thaliana telomeres exhibit euchromatic features. Nucleic Acids Research, 39, 2007-2017. doi:10.1093/nar/gkq1119

[14] Richards, E. and Ausubel, F. (1988) Isolation of a higher eukaryotic telomere from Arabidopsis thaliana. Cell, 53, 127-136. doi:10.1016/0092-8674(88)90494-1

[15] Richards, E., Goodman, H. and Ausubel, F. (1991) The centromere region of Arabidopsis thaliana chromosome 1 contains telomere-similar sequences. Nucleic Acids Research, 19, 3351-3357. doi:10.1093/nar/19.12.3351

[16] Richards, E., Chao, S., Vongs, A. and Yang, J. (1992) Characterization of Arabidopsis thaliana telomeres isolated in yeast. Nucleic Acids Research, 20, 4039-4046. doi:10.1093/nar/20.15.4039

[17] Regad, F., Lebas, M. and Lescure, B. (1994) ITSs within the Arabidopsis thaliana genome. Journal of Molecular Biology, 239, 163-169. doi:10.1006/jmbi.1994.1360

[18] Uchida, W., Matsunaga, S., Sugiyama, R. and Kawano, S. (2002) Interstitial telomere-like repeats in the Arabidopsis thaliana genome. Genes Genetic Systems, 77, 63-67. doi:10.1266/ggs.77.63

[19] Shakirov, E. and Shippen, D. (2004) Length regulation and dynamics of individual telomere tracts in wild-type Arabidopsis. Plant Cell, 16, 1959-1967. doi:10.1105/tpc.104.023093

[20] Vannier, J., Depeiges, A., White, C. and Gallego, M. (2009) ERCC1/XPF protects short telomeres from homologous recombination in Arabidopsis thaliana. PLoS Genetics, 5, e1000380.

[21] Majerová, E., Fojtová, M., Mandáková, T. and Fajkus, J. (2011) Methylation of plant telomeric DNA: What do the results say? Plant Molecular Biology, 77, 533-536. doi:10.1007/s11103-011-9834-5

[22] Vaquero-Sedas, M. and Vega-Palas, M. (2012) The restriction endonuclease Tru9I is a useful tool for the analysis of telomeric chromatin structure in Arabidopsis thaliana. American Journal of Molecular Biology, 2, 242-244. doi:10.4236/ajmb.2012.23025

[23] Vaquero-Sedas, M., Luo C. and Vega-Palas, M. (2012) Analysis of the epigenetic status of telomeres by using ChIP-seq data. Nucleic Acids Research, 40, e163. doi:10.1093/nar/gks730