Research Status and Application Prospects of Telomere Length Analysis / 中国生物化学与分子生物学报

ABSTRACT

Telomere is one of the basic functional elements for maintaining genome stability. Telomeres can become shorter due to cell divisions and environmental factors. Critically shortened telomeres eventually lead to cellular replicative senescence. Telomere length is an important parameter of telomere function, which determines the stability of chromosomes and the ability of cell proliferation. Currently multiple methods have been developed for the analysis of telomere length, including terminal restriction fragment (TRF) analysis, quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR), single telomere length analysis (STE-LA), telomere shortest length assay (TeSLA) and telomere length combing assay (TCA) based on DNA, as well as quantitative fluorescence in situ hybridization (Q-FISH) based on cellular levels. Different analysis methods are applied to obtain different telomere relevant variables. In the review, we discuss the principle and application advantages of each telomere length analysis, which may help researchers select an optimal assessment approach to better address specific research questions about telomere in either model organisms or humans.