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Telomere length dynamics in human lymphocyte subpopulations measured by flow cytometry

Nature Biotechnology volume 16, pages 743–747 (1998)Cite this article

Abstract

To measure the average length of telomere repeats at chromosome ends in individual cells we developed a flow cytometry method using fluorescence in situ hybridization (flow FISH) with labeled peptide nucleic acid (PNA) probes. Results of flow FISH measurements correlated with results of conventional telomere length measurements by Southern blot analysis (R=0.9). Consistent differences in telomere length in CD8+ T-cell subsets were identified. Naive and memory CD4+ T lymphocytes in normal adults differed by around 2.5 kb in telomere length, in agreement with known replicative shortening of telomeres in lymphocytes in vivo. T-cell clones grown in vitro showed stabilization of telomere length after an initial decline and rare clones capable of growing beyond 100 population doublings showed variable telomere length. These results show that flow FISH can be used to measure specific nucleotide repeat sequences in single cells and indicate that the very large replicative potential of lymphocytes is only indirectly related to telomere length.

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Author information

Author notes

  1. Peter M. Lansdorp: (e-mail: peter@terryfox.ubc.ca).

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Terry Fox Laboratory, British Columbia Cancer Research Centre, Vancouver, British Columbia, V5Z1L3, Canada

    Nathalie Rufer, Wieslawa Dragowska, Gayle Thornbury & Peter M. Lansdorp

  2. Hopital Cantonal XJniversitaire of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

    Eddy Roosnek

  3. Department of Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T2B5, Canada

    Peter M. Lansdorp

Authors
  1. Nathalie Rufer
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  2. Wieslawa Dragowska
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  3. Gayle Thornbury
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  4. Eddy Roosnek
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  5. Peter M. Lansdorp
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Rufer, N., Dragowska, W., Thornbury, G. et al. Telomere length dynamics in human lymphocyte subpopulations measured by flow cytometry. Nat Biotechnol 16, 743–747 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt0898-743

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt0898-743

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