Reconstitution of active telomerase in primary human foreskin fibroblasts: effects on proliferative characteristics and response to ionizing radiation.

PURPOSE: Telomere shortening has been proposed to trigger senescence, and since most primary cells do not express active telomerase, reactivation of telomerase activity was proposed as a safe and non-transforming way of immortalizing cells. However, to study radiation responses, it is as yet unclear whether cells immortalized by telomerase reactivation behave in a similar manner as their parental primary cells. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Primary human foreskin fibroblasts were transfected with the human catalytic subunit of telomerase, the reverse transcriptase (hTERT), and their growth characteristics and response to DNA damage were characterized. RESULTS: The sole expression of the human hTERT was sufficient to immortalize the human foreskin fibroblasts. With time in culture, the immortalized cells almost doubled their average telomeric length and the clonal population contained almost no post-mitotic fibroblasts anymore. Up to 300 population doublings, no alterations compared with the parental primary cells were seen in terms of clonogenic radiosensitivity, DNA double-strand break repair, radiation-induced increases in p53 and p21(WAF-1,CIP-1) expression, and the G1/S and G2/M cell cycle checkpoints. Moreover, mitogen-induced mitotic arrest of fibroblasts was still possible in the hTERT-immortalized clones. CONCLUSIONS: Immortalizing fibroblasts by reconstitution of active telomerase seems a good, reliable manner to generate a large source of cells with a radiation damage response similar to the primary cells.

Uncoupling the senescent phenotype from telomere shortening in hydrogen peroxide-treated fibroblasts.

Normal human cells have a limited replicative potential and inevitably reach replicative senescence in culture. Replicatively senescent cells show multiple molecular changes, some of which are related to the irreversible growth arrest in culture, whereas others resemble the changes occurring during the process of aging in vivo. Telomeres shorten as a result of cell replication and are thought to serve as a replicometer for senescence. Recent studies show that young cells can be induced to develop features of senescence prematurely by damaging agents, chromatin remodeling, and overexpression of ras or the E2F1 gene. Accelerated telomere shortening is thought to be a mechanism of premature senescence in some models. In this work, we test whether the acquisition of a senescent phenotype after mild-dose hydrogen peroxide (H(2)O(2)) exposure requires telomere shortening. Treating young HDFs with 150 microM H(2)O(2) once or 75 microM H(2)O(2) twice in 2 weeks causes long-term growth arrest, an enlarged morphology, activation of senescence-associated beta-galactosidase, and elevated expression of collagenase and clusterin mRNAs. No significant telomere shortening was observed with H(2)O(2) at doses ranging from 50 to 200 microM. Weekly treatment with 75 microM H(2)O(2) also failed to induce significant telomere shortening. Failure of telomere shortening correlated with an inability to elevate p16 protein or mRNA in H(2)O(2)-treated cells. In contrast, p21 mRNA was elevated over 40-fold and remained at this level for at least 2 weeks after a pulse treatment of H(2)O(2). The role of cell cycle checkpoints centered on p21 in premature senescence induced by H(2)O(2) is discussed here.

Human neural precursor cells express low levels of telomerase in vitro and show diminishing cell proliferation with extensive axonal outgrowth following transplantation.

Worldwideattention is presently focused on proliferating populations of neural precursor cells as an in vitro source of tissue for neural transplantation and brain repair. However, successful neuroreconstruction is contingent upon their capacity to integrate within the host CNS and the absence of tumorigenesis. Here we show that human neural precursor cells express very low levels of telomerase at early passages (less than 20 population doublings), but that this decreases to undetectable levels at later passages. In contrast, rodent neural precursors express high levels of telomerase at both early and late passages. The human neural precursors also have telomeres (approximately 12 kbp) significantly shorter than those of their rodent counterparts (approximately 40 kbp). Human neural precursors were then expanded 100-fold prior to intrastriatal transplantation in a rodent model of Parkinson's disease. To establish the effects of implanted cell number on survival and integration, precursors were transplanted at either 200,000, 1 million, or 2 million cells per animal. Interestingly, the smaller transplants were more likely to extend neuronal fibers and less likely to provoke immune rejection than the largest transplants in this xenograft model. Cellular proliferation continued immediately post-transplantation, but by 20 weeks there were virtually no dividing cells within any of the grafts. In contrast, fiber outgrowth increased gradually over time and often occupied the entire striatum at 20 weeks postgrafting. Transient expression of tyrosine hydroxylase-positive cells within the grafts was found in some animals, but this was not sustained at 20 weeks and had no functional effects. For Parkinson's disease, the principal aim now is to induce the dopaminergic phenotype in these cells prior to transplantation. However, given the relative safety profile for these human cells and their capacity to extend fibers into the adult rodent brain, they may provide the ideal basis for the repair of other lesions of the CNS where extensive axonal outgrowth is required.

Telomere length regulation during postnatal development and ageing in Mus spretus.

Telomere shortening has been causally implicated in replicative senescence in humans. To examine the relationship between telomere length and ageing in mice, we have utilized Mus spretus as a model species because it has telomere lengths of approximately the same length as humans. Telomere length and telomerase were analyzed from liver, kidney, spleen, brain and testis from >180 M.spretus male and female mice of different ages. Although telomere lengths for each tissue were heterogeneous, significant changes in telomere lengths were found in spleen and brain, but not in liver, testis or kidney. Telomerase activity was abundant in liver and testis, but weak to non-detectable in spleen, kidney and brain. Gender differences in mean terminal restriction fragment length were discovered in tissues from M.spretus and from M.spretus xC57BL/6 F1 mice, in which a M. spretus -sized telomeric smear could be measured. The comparison of the rank order of tissue telomere lengths within individual M. spretus showed that certain tissues tended to be longer than the others, and this ranking also extended to tissues of the M.spretus xC57BL/6 F1 mice. These data suggest that telomere lengths within individual tissues are regulated independently and are genetically controlled.

Telomerase activity in hematopoietic cells is associated with self-renewal potential.

It has been proposed that the biological clock underlying the limited division potential of eukaryotic cells is telomere length. We assayed telomerase activity in single cells of the hematopoietic and immune systems. We examined hematopoietic stem cells at four stages of differentiation, lineage-committed progenitors, and mature myeloid and lymphoid cells. The frequency of telomerase-expressing cells within each population was proportional to the frequency of cells thought to have self-renewal potential. Among bone marrow hematopoietic stem cells, 70% exhibited detectable telomerase activity. The telomerase-expressing somatic cells observed in this study are not thought to be immortal, and expression was not correlated with cell cycle distribution or differentiation state. This study demonstrates that the developmental characteristic most consistently associated with telomerase expression is self-renewal potential.

Developmental and tissue-specific regulation of mouse telomerase and telomere length.

Telomere shortening and telomerase activation in human somatic cells have been implicated in cell immortalization and cellular senescence. To further study the role of telomerase in immortalization, we assayed telomere length and telomerase activity in primary mouse fibroblasts, in spontaneously immortalized cell clones, and in mouse tissues. In the primary cell cultures, telomere length decreased with increased cell doublings and telomerase activity was not detected. In contrast, in spontaneously immortalized clones, telomeres were maintained at a stable length and telomerase activity was present. To determine if telomere shortening occurs in vivo, we assayed for telomerase and telomere length in tissues from mice of different ages. Telomere length was similar among different tissues within a newborn mouse, whereas telomere length differed between tissues in an adult mouse. These findings suggest that there is tissue-specific regulation of mouse telomerase during development and aging in vivo. In contrast to human tissues, most mouse tissues had active telomerase. The presence of telomerase in these tissues may reflect the ease of immortalization of primary mouse cells relative to human cells in culture.

Specific association of human telomerase activity with immortal cells and cancer.

Synthesis of DNA at chromosome ends by telomerase may be necessary for indefinite proliferation of human cells. A highly sensitive assay for measuring telomerase activity was developed. In cultured cells representing 18 different human tissues, 98 of 100 immortal and none of 22 mortal populations were positive for telomerase. Similarly, 90 of 101 biopsies representing 12 human tumor types and none of 50 normal somatic tissues were positive. Normal ovaries and testes were positive, but benign tumors such as fibroids were negative. Thus, telomerase appears to be stringently repressed in normal human somatic tissues but reactivated in cancer, where immortal cells are likely required to maintain tumor growth.

Species-specific changes in regulatory elements of mouse haptoglobin genes.

Although expression of the haptoglobin (HP) as an acute phase reactant is evolutionarily conserved among mammals, there are differences among species with regard to the hormones required for stimulation. Using primary hepatocyte cultures, we show that in Mus caroli, as in rat, IL-1 and IL-6 are stimulatory, whereas in M. domesticus, as in humans, IL-1 response is diminished. In vivo, an acute inflammatory process increases hepatic HP expression in both mouse species up to 30-fold but minimally affects the low level HP expression in the lung. To define the species-specific differences in regulation, we isolated the hormone-responsive elements of the HP gene from the Mus species, M. domesticus, M. caroli, and M. saxicola. Functional studies in transfected hepatoma cells revealed an exceptionally strong dexamethasone response for all three murine HP gene elements. The IL-6 response was less prominent than in rat or human. A modest response to IL-1 was observed in M. caroli and M. saxicola. A mouse-specific insertion of a polypurine sequence led to a binding site for the PEA3 transcription factor in the HP gene promoter of M. domesticus and M. saxicola, but not M. caroli. The specific regulatory effects of glucocorticoid receptor, C/EBP beta, and Ets proteins were documented by co-transfection.

Identification of a nonprocessive telomerase activity from mouse cells.

Telomerase activity was identified in extracts from several different mouse cell lines. Addition of telomeric TTAGGG repeats was specific to telomeric oligonucleotide primers and sensitive to pretreatment with RNase A. In contrast to the hundreds of repeats synthesized by the human and Tetrahymena telomerase enzymes in vitro, mouse telomerase synthesized only one or two TTAGGG repeats onto telomeric primers. The products observed after elongation of primers with circularly permuted (TTAGGG)3 sequences and after chain termination with ddATP or ddTTP indicated that mouse telomerase pauses after the addition of the first dG residue in the sequence TTAGGG. The short length of the products synthesized by mouse telomerase was not due to a diffusible inhibitor in the mouse extract, because the human telomerase continued to synthesize long products when mixed with mouse fractions. Primer challenge experiments showed that the human enzyme synthesized long TTAGGG repeats processively in vitro, whereas the mouse telomerase appeared to be much less processive. The identification of short telomerase reaction products in mouse extracts suggests that extracts from other organisms may also generate only short products. This knowledge may aid in the identification of telomerase activity in organisms where activity has not yet been detected.

Transcriptional regulation through cytokine and glucocorticoid response elements of rat acute phase plasma protein genes by C/EBP and JunB.

Independent of de novo protein synthesis, interleukin-1, interleukin-6, and dexamethasone caused immediate stimulation of transcriptional activity of most major acute phase plasma protein genes in the rat hepatoma H-35 cells. However, activation of alpha 2-macroglobulin and alpha 1-acid glycoprotein genes were delayed by 2-4 h and required ongoing protein synthesis. The hormones also increased transiently the transcription of the junB gene and the amounts of JunB, C/EBP, and C/EBP-like mRNA. To identify whether JunB and C/EBP have the ability to control both the early and late acute phase reactants, expression vectors for mouse C/EBP and JunB together with reporter gene constructs containing recognized hormone-specific regulatory elements were introduced into hepatoma cells. C/EBP displayed prominent transactivation activity with the interleukin-1 and glucocorticoid regulatory elements of alpha 1-acid glycoprotein, the interleukin-1 regulatory element of haptoglobin gene, and the interleukin-6 regulatory element of beta-fibrinogen. The interleukin-6 regulatory elements of the first two genes and the glucocorticoid response element of the third gene were not affected by C/EBP. These data suggest that normal hormone activation of these three acute phase reactant genes might involve, in part, C/EBP-related factors which have a broad range of specificity. H-35 cells stably transformed with a mouse C/EBP expression vector showed an elevated basal level as well as cytokine inducible expression of some but not all acute phase reactants. Cotransfected JunB resulted in reduced activity of cytokine-responsive constructs and in lower transactivation by C/EBP. JunB appears to function as a modulator of plasma protein expression during the course of acute phase response.

Molecular characterization and acute phase expression of the multiple Mus caroli alpha 1-acid glycoprotein (AGP) genes. Differences in glucocorticoid stimulation and regulatory elements between the rat and mouse AGP genes.

In this study, we have analyzed alpha 1-acid glycoprotein (AGP) production in the wild mouse strain Mus caroli to assess whether the stimulation of AGP by inflammatory mediators has been conserved during rodent evolution and to determine what DNA elements manifested the hormonal induction in mouse AGP gene sequences. To this end, we isolated the M. caroli AGP genes and characterized their expression. Southern blot hybridization of M. caroli genomic DNA revealed the existence of approximately eight genes per haploid genome, and eight distinct genes were identified from a M. caroli lambda genomic DNA library. Two actively transcribed and acute phase-regulated genes (AGP genes 1 and 8) were identified by sequence correlation with the two different cDNAs isolated from an acute phase liver cDNA library. Two-dimensional gel analysis of in vitro transcription and translation products from these two cDNAs displayed a pattern of protein precursors identical with that shown by in vitro translation of the endogenous AGP mRNA. A glucocorticoid-responsive element (GRE) in M. caroli AGP gene 8 was localized to a unique sequence distal to the relative position of the rat AGP gene GRE. The mouse region analogous to the rat GRE did not show glucocorticoid-mediated induction of an indicator gene although greater than 90% sequence similarity is maintained. GRE function in this mouse region was improved by introducing a point mutation that restores the rat AGP GRE consensus sequence, although the relative induction obtained was less than the wild-type rat AGP GRE.

Interleukin-1 and interleukin-6 stimulate acute-phase protein production in primary mouse hepatocytes.

Primary mouse hepatocytes were treated with the acute-phase mediators interleukin-1, interleukin-6, and glucocorticoids, singularly and in combination, in order to delineate the spectrum of proteins induced by the stimulatory factors. As found for rat and human liver cells, mouse hepatocytes responded to the cytokines by increasing production of acute-phase proteins, which in mice include haptoglobin, alpha 1-acid glycoprotein, complement C-3, serum amyloid A, and hemopexin. Serum amyloid A was unusual in that only the acidic peptide form responded to treatment with IL-1 and IL-6; the more basic form remained unchanged. In addition, an unidentified secretory protein was induced only by mixtures containing IL-6. The present study shows that a combination of IL-1, IL-6, and glucocorticoids is required for regulation of acute-phase plasma protein production in mouse liver cells.

Regulation of acute phase protein genes by hepatocyte-stimulating factors, monokines and glucocorticoids.

The synthesis of all the major acute phase plasma proteins is stimulated in rat hepatoma and primary cultures of hepatocytes by three, structurally and functionally distinct groups of hormones: 1) hepatocyte-stimulating factors (HSF) and interleukin-6 (IL-6); 2) interleukin-1 (IL-1) and tumor necrosis factor (TNF); and 3) glucocorticoids. Each plasma protein gene requires a specific combination of these 3 hormone types for maximal expression. One set of acute phase proteins, including alpha 2-macroglobulin, alpha 1-antichymotrypsin ( = contrapsin), cysteine protease inhibitor ( = thiostatin), alpha 1-antitrypsin, ceruloplasmin and fibrinogens are predominantly regulated by the keratinocyte-derived HSF-III/-II or IL-6, while a second set of proteins, including alpha 1-acid glycoprotein (AGP), haptoglobin and complement C3 are predominantly regulated by keratinocyte-derived HSF-I, IL-1 or TNF. In conjunction with the above peptide hormones, glucocorticoids synergistically enhance the stimulated expression of most, but not all, acute phase proteins. An exceptionally strong synergy between HSF (or IL-6), IL-1 and glucocorticoids is noted for the activation of the AGP gene. To elucidate the molecular mechanisms of regulation, we have identified the cis-acting genetic elements through which all these hormones control the transcriptional activity of the AGP gene. It appears that acute phase activates a specific nuclear binding protein in the rat liver that interacts with the peptide hormone responsive element located 5 kb upstream of the transcriptional start site.

Hepatocyte-stimulating factor, beta 2 interferon, and interleukin-1 enhance expression of the rat alpha 1-acid glycoprotein gene via a distal upstream regulatory region.

The rat alpha 1-acid glycoprotein (AGP) gene is transcriptionally regulated by dexamethasone, interleukin 1 (IL-1), hepatocyte-stimulating factor, and beta 2 interferon. The steroid and peptide hormones stimulate expression of the AGP gene synergistically as well as independently. The regulatory sequence responsible for dexamethasone-stimulated expression has been localized previously to a region that is 120 to 64 base pairs (bp) upstream of the transcription start site (H. Baumann and L. E. Maquat, Mol. Cell. Biol. 6:2551-2561, 1986). To identify the regulatory sequence that is responsive to the peptide hormones, different lengths of the AGP gene 5'-flanking DNA were linked to the chloramphenicol acetyltransferase gene and then assayed for hormone-inducible chloramphenicol acetyltransferase gene expression in transiently transfected HepG2 cells. We demonstrate that an enhancer region that is responsive to IL-1, hepatocyte-stimulating factor, and beta 2 interferon lies within a 142-bp sequence located 5,300 to 5,150 bp upstream of the transcription start site. This distal regulatory region can confer hormone inducibility to a heterologous promoter; exert its affect in either orientation; and function, to a lesser degree, in nonhepatic but IL-1-responsive cells.