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Lecture

Telomere Mutations and Genome Stability

In course

BIO-471: Cancer biology I

The course covers in detail molecular mechanisms of cancer development with emphasis on cell cycle control, genome stability, oncogenes, tumor suppressor genes, signaling pathways involved in cancer, genomic cancer analysis and rational cancer therapies. ...

Description

This lecture covers the process of mutating RNA sequences to alter telomere DNA, the implications of telomere shortening on chromosome fusion, strategies to overcome telomere shortening, and experimental methods to study telomerase recruitment and telomere replication. The instructor discusses the role of various genes in telomere maintenance, the impact of telomerase activity on cell crisis, and the experimental approaches to investigate telomere length and telomerase processivity.

Instructors (3)

Elisa Oricchio

Joachim Lingner

PhD at the Biocenter, University of Basel 1989-1992 (Supervisor: Walter Keller). Postdoc at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Colorado at Boulder 1993-1997 (Supervisor: Thomas Cech). Junior group leader at ISREC 1997-2001. Senior group leader at ISREC since 2002. Associate Professor at EPFL 2005-2008. Full Professor at EPFL since 2009. Honors: START-fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation in 1997; Friedrich Miescher Prize from the Swiss Society of Biochemistry in 2002; EMBO member in 2005; ERC advanced investigator grant in 2008.

Viesturs Simanis

Viesturs Simanis was awarded a degree in Biochemistry from Imperial College London. He carried out his doctoral studies with David Lane at Imperial College, London University, and postdoctoral studies with Paul Nurse (London and Oxford). He has been a group leader at ISREC since 1988. In 2006 he was appointed Associate Professor at the EPFL School of Life Sciences

Official source

Related concepts (10)

Telomerase

Telomerase, also called terminal transferase, is a ribonucleoprotein that adds a species-dependent telomere repeat sequence to the 3' end of telomeres. A telomere is a region of repetitive sequences at each end of the chromosomes of most eukaryotes. Telomeres protect the end of the chromosome from DNA damage or from fusion with neighbouring chromosomes. The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster lacks telomerase, but instead uses retrotransposons to maintain telomeres. Telomerase is a reverse transcriptase enzyme that carries its own RNA molecule (e.

Telomere

A telomere (ˈtɛləmɪər,_ˈtiːlə-; ) is a region of repetitive nucleotide sequences associated with specialized proteins at the ends of linear chromosomes. Telomeres are a widespread genetic feature most commonly found in eukaryotes. In most, if not all species possessing them, they protect the terminal regions of chromosomal DNA from progressive degradation and ensure the integrity of linear chromosomes by preventing DNA repair systems from mistaking the very ends of the DNA strand for a double-strand break.

Telomerase reverse transcriptase

Telomerase reverse transcriptase (abbreviated to TERT, or hTERT in humans) is a catalytic subunit of the enzyme telomerase, which, together with the telomerase RNA component (TERC), comprises the most important unit of the telomerase complex. Telomerases are part of a distinct subgroup of RNA-dependent polymerases. Telomerase lengthens telomeres in DNA strands, thereby allowing senescent cells that would otherwise become postmitotic and undergo apoptosis to exceed the Hayflick limit and become potentially immortal, as is often the case with cancerous cells.

DNA replication

In molecular biology, DNA replication is the biological process of producing two identical replicas of DNA from one original DNA molecule. DNA replication occurs in all living organisms acting as the most essential part of biological inheritance. This is essential for cell division during growth and repair of damaged tissues, while it also ensures that each of the new cells receives its own copy of the DNA. The cell possesses the distinctive property of division, which makes replication of DNA essential.

Cell culture

Cell culture or tissue culture is the process by which cells are grown under controlled conditions, generally outside of their natural environment. The term "tissue culture" was coined by American pathologist Montrose Thomas Burrows. This technique is also called micropropagation. After the cells of interest have been isolated from living tissue, they can subsequently be maintained under carefully controlled conditions. They need to be kept at body temperature (37 °C) in an incubator.

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Cellular Senescence and Tumor Progression