RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 The genetic basis of natural variation in <em>C. elegans</em> telomere length
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 051276
DO 10.1101/051276
A1 D.C. Cook
A1 S. Zdraljevic
A1 R.E. Tanny
A1 B. Seo
A1 D.D. Riccardi
A1 L.M. Noble
A1 M.V. Rockman
A1 M.J. Alkema
A1 C. Braendle
A1 J.E. Kammenga
A1 J. Wang
A1 L. Kruglyak
A1 M.A. Félix
A1 J. Lee
A1 E.C. Andersen
YR 2016
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/05/02/051276.abstract
AB Telomeres are involved in the maintenance of chromosomes and the prevention of genome instability. Despite this central importance, significant variation in telomere length has been observed in a variety of organisms. The genetic determinants of telomere-length variation and their effects on organismal fitness are largely unexplored. Here, we describe natural variation in telomere length across the Caenorhabditis elegans species. We identify a large-effect variant that contributes to differences in telomere length. The variant alters the conserved oligosaccharide/oligonucleotide-binding fold of POT-2, a homolog of a human telomere-capping shelterin complex subunit. Mutations within this domain likely reduce the ability of POT-2 to bind telomeric DNA, thereby increasing telomere length. We find that telomere-length variation does not correlate with offspring production or longevity in C. elegans wild isolates, suggesting that naturally long telomeres play a limited role in modifying fitness phenotypes in C. elegans.