title: Cumulative stress in research animals: Telomere attrition as a biomarker in a welfare context?
abstract: Progress in improving animal welfare is currently limited by the lack of objective methods for assessing lifetime experience. I propose that telomere attrition, a cellular biomarker of biological age, provides a molecular measure of cumulative experience that could be used to assess the welfare impact of husbandry regimes and/or experimental procedures on non-human animals. I review evidence from humans that telomere attrition is accelerated by negative experiences in a cumulative and dose-dependent manner, but that this attrition can be mitigated or even reversed by positive life-style interventions. Evidence from non-human animals suggests that despite some specific differences in telomere biology, stress-induced telomere attrition is a robust phenomenon, occurring in a range of species including mice and chickens. I conclude that telomere attrition apparently integrates positive and negative experience in an accessible common currency that translates readily to novel species--the Holy Grail of a cumulative welfare indicator.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Behaviour and Evolution/Institute of Neuroscience, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.
authors.forename: Melissa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bateson
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D013312:Stress, Physiological / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology*; D016615:Telomere / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers
keywords: animal welfare; biological age; biomarker; cumulative experience; cumulative severity; stress; telomere dynamics