title: Shorter telomere length with age in the loggerhead turtle: a new hope for live sea turtle age estimation.
abstract: We verified whether telomere length shortens with age in the loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) by measuring telomere lengths (relative telomere to single copy gene [T/S] ratios) in whole blood and epidermis from 20 captive individuals with a real-time PCR method. There was no significant correlation between age and relative T/S ratios in blood. Although the correlation between age and relative T/S ratios in epidermis was not significant, older turtles had smaller relative T/S ratios in epidermis. It was thus demonstrated that telomere length in epidermis could be a useful age estimator for sea turtles. Relative age information obtained with this simple, rapid, non-invasive technique may help to advance our understanding of the ecology of endangered sea turtles. This is the first publication on age-related changes in telomere length among chelonians.
authors.affiliation: Ocean Research Institute, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan. hatase@ori.u-tokyo.ac.jp
authors.forename: Hideo
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hatase
authors.forename: Ryusuke
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Sudo
authors.forename: Kunihiro K
authors.initials: KK
authors.lastname: Watanabe
authors.forename: Takashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kasugai
authors.forename: Tomomi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Saito
authors.forename: Hitoshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Okamoto
authors.forename: Itaru
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Uchida
authors.forename: Katsumi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Tsukamoto
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D000818:Animals; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D016615:Telomere / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism; D014426:Turtles / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology