Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Comment
. 2014 Nov 15;28(22):2445-6.
doi: 10.1101/gad.254573.114.

The long reach of telomeres

Tom Misteli  1
Affiliations
Comment

The long reach of telomeres

Tom Misteli. Genes Dev. .

Abstract

The primary purpose of telomeres is to protect chromosome ends from erosion during cell division cycles. New observations suggest an additional function for telomeres, namely in gene silencing via formation of long-range chromatin interactions.

Keywords: age-dependent gene expression; cancer; chromatin; chromosome looping; replicative aging; senescence; telomerase.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Multiple modes of action of telomeres. (Top) Inhibition of DDR signaling: Association of the shelterin complex (orange) at telomere ends (blue) prevents the inappropriate activation of the DDR pathway, which would lead to inhibition of cell proliferation. (Middle) TPE: Spreading of heterochromatin using the H3K9me3/Suv3–9/HP1 (pink) system away from telomeres is responsible for repression of genes in the subtelomeric region. (Bottom) TPE-OLD: This mechanism acts at the megabase scale and involves looping of telomeres onto its target genes (red) to modulate their expression.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment on

References

    1. Blasco MA. 2007. The epigenetic regulation of mammalian telomeres. Nat Rev Genet 8: 299–309. - PubMed
    1. Calo E, Wysocka J. 2013. Modification of enhancer chromatin: what, how, and why? Mol Cell 49: 825–837. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Elgin SC, Reuter G. 2013. Position-effect variegation, heterochromatin formation, and gene silencing in Drosophila. Cold Spring Harb Perspect Biol 5: a017780. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Fourel G, Revardel E, Koering CE, Gilson E. 1999. Cohabitation of insulators and silencing elements in yeast subtelomeric regions. EMBO J 18: 2522–2537. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Gottschling DE, Aparicio OM, Billington BL, Zakian VA. 1990. Position effect at S. cerevisiae telomeres: reversible repression of Pol II transcription. Cell 63: 751–762. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources