To examine the role of ataxia-telangiectasia mutated (Atm) in telomere function, we generated Atm and telomerase null mice (Atm(-/-) mTR(-/-) iG6 mice). These mice exhibited increased germ cell death and chromosome fusions ...

Eukaryotic cells undergo arrest and enter apoptosis in response to short telomeres. T cells from late generation mTR(-/-) mice that lack telomerase show increased apoptosis when stimulated to enter the cell cycle. The ...

Telomere dysfunction results in fertility defects in a number of organisms. Although data from fission yeast and Caenorhabditis elegans suggests that telomere dysfunction manifests itself primarily as defects in proper ...

Autosomal-dominant dyskeratosis congenita is associated with heterozygous mutations in telomerase. To examine the dosage effect of telomerase, we generated a line of mTR+/ÿ mice on the CAST/EiJ background, which has short ...

Loss of telomere function can induce cell cycle arrest and apoptosis. To investigate the processes that trig- ger cellular responses to telomere dysfunction, we crossed mTR􏰀/􏰀 G6 mice that have short telomeres with mice ...

Telomere length and telomerase activity directly affect the replicative capacity of primary human cells. Some have suggested that telomere length influences organismal lifespan. We compared telomere length distributions ...

Telomerase is an enzyme that maintains telomere length by adding telomeric sequence repeats onto chromosome ends. The telomerase ribonucleoprotein complex consists of two essential components, a reverse transcriptase and ...

Telomerase plays a crucial role in telomere maintenance in vivo. To understand telomerase regulation, we have been characterizing components of the enzyme. To date several components of the mammalian telomerase holoenzyme ...

The increased tumor incidence in telomerase null mice suggests that telomere dysfunction induces genetic instability. To test this directly, we examined mutation rate in the absence of telomerase in S. cerevisiae. The ...