Regulation of murine telomere length by Rtel: an essential gene encoding a helicase-like protein.
Little is known about the genes that regulate telomere length diversity between mammalian species. A candidate gene locus was previously mapped to a region on distal mouse Chr 2q. Within this region, we identified a gene similar to the dog-1 DNA helicase-like gene in C. elegans. We cloned this Regulator of telomere length (Rtel) gene and inactivated its expression in mice. Rtel(-/-) mice died between days 10 and 11.5 of gestation with defects in the nervous system, heart, vasculature, and extraembryonic tissues. Rtel(-/-) embryonic stem cells showed telomere loss and displayed many chromosome breaks and fusions upon differentiation in vitro. Crosses of Rtel(+/-) mice with Mus spretus showed that Rtel from the Mus musculus parent is required for telomere elongation of M. spretus chromosomes in F1 cells. We conclude that Rtel is an essential gene that regulates telomere length and prevents genetic instability.
Ding
Hao
H
Mount Sinai Hospital, Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute, Toronto, Ontario, M5G 1X5, Canada.
Schertzer
Mike
M
Wu
Xiaoli
X
Gertsenstein
Marina
M
Selig
Sara
S
Kammori
Makoto
M
Pourvali
Reza
R
Poon
Steven
S
Vulto
Irma
I
Chavez
Elizabeth
E
Tam
Patrick P L
PP
Nagy
Andras
A
Lansdorp
Peter M
PM
D000015:Abnormalities, Multiple; D017398:Alternative Splicing; D020816:Amino Acid Motifs; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D002869:Chromosome Aberrations; D002874:Chromosome Mapping; D017124:Conserved Sequence; D003433:Crosses, Genetic; D004265:DNA Helicases / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics*; D005091:Exons; D015870:Gene Expression; D018507:Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; D020043:Genes, Essential; D005809:Genes, Regulator; D051379:Mice; D018345:Mice, Knockout; D008817:Mice, Mutant Strains; D008954:Models, Biological; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009115:Muridae / Q000235:genetics; D017434:Protein Structure, Tertiary; D011995:Recombination, Genetic; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D013234:Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology; D016615:Telomere; D014018:Tissue Distribution
D004265:DNA Helicases