Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Cloning and characterization of telomerase reverse transcriptase gene in Trichinella spiralis

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Parasitology Research Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) is primarily known for its ability to elongate telomeres for maintaining chromosomal integrity and delaying cellular senescence. It plays an important role in cell proliferation, differentiation, tumorigenesis, and aging. Telomerase includes two core components—an internal RNA moiety acting as a template of DNA extension and a catalytic subunit (TERT) which provides catalytic activity. Here, we described the cloning, sequence, and characterization of the TERT gene from Trichinella spiralis (T. spiralis). The prediction results of amino acid sequence showed that it possessed all the motifs characteristics of the TERT family members. T. spiralis TERT (Ts_TERT) cDNA contains an open reading frame encoding a protein with 1,201 amino acids with moleculer mass of 139 kDa and isoelectric point of 9.673, and the protein contains the conserved reverse transcriptase motifs 1, 2, A, B, C, D, and E, as well as the TERT-specific T motifs and the N-terminal conserved motifs GQ, CP, and QFP. While RT-PCR analysis indicates that TERT mRNA is expressed in T. spiralis adult worm, newborn larvae, and muscle larvae.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Autexier C, Lue NF (2006) The structure and function of telomerase reverse transcriptase. Annu Rev Biochem 75:493–517

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Bachand F, Autexier C (2001) Functional regions of human telomerase reverse transcriptase and human telomerase RNA required for telomerase activity and RNA-protein interactions. Mol Cell Biol 21:1888–1897

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Blackburn EH (2005) Telomeres and telomerase: their mechanisms of action and the effects of altering their functions. FEBS Lett 579:859–862

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Bosoy D, Peng Y, Mian IS, Lue NF (2003) Conserved N-terminal motifs of telomerase reverse transcriptase required for ribonucleoprotein assembly in vivo. J Biol Chem 278:3882–3890

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Bryan TM, Sperger JM, Chapman KB, Cech TR (1998) Telomerase reverse transcriptase genes identified in Tetrahymena thermophila and Oxytricha trifallax. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 95:8479–8484

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Bryan TM, Goodrich KJ, Cech TR (2000) Telomerase RNA bound by protein motifs specific to telomerase reverse transcriptase. Mol Cell 6:493–499

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Dennis DT, Despommier DD, Davis N (1970) Infectivity of the newborn larva of Trichinella spiralis in the rat. J Parasitol 56:974–977

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Dreesen O, Li B, Cross GAM (2005) Telomere structure and shortening in telomerase-deficient Trypanosoma brucei. Nucleic Acids Res 33:4536–4543

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • El-Sayed NM, Myler PJ, Bartholomeu DC, Nilsson D, Aggarwal G, Tran A-N, Ghedin E, Worthey EA, Delcher AL, Blandin G et al (2005) The genome sequence of Trypanosoma cruzi, etiologic agent of Chagas disease. Science 309:409–415

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Figueiredo LM, Rocha EPC, Mancio-Silva L, Prevost C, Hernandez-Verdun D, Scherf A (2005) The unusually large Plasmodium telomerase reverse-transcriptase localizes in a discrete compartment associated with the nucleolus. Nucleic Acids Res 33:1111–1122

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Giardini M, Lira C, Conte F, Camillo L, de Siqueira Neto J, Ramos C, Cano M (2006) The putative telomerase reverse transcriptase component of Leishmania amazonensis: gene cloning and characterization. Parasitol Res 98:447–454

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Greenberg RA, Allsopp RC, Chin L, Morin GB, DePinho RA (1998) Expression of mouse telomerase reverse transcriptase during development, differentiation and proliferation. Oncogene 16:1723–1730

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Guo W, Okamoto M, Lee Y-M, Baluda MA, Park N-H (2001) Enhanced activity of cloned hamster TERT gene promoter in transformed cells. Biochim Biophys Acta 1517:398–409

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Hall N, Karras M, Raine JD, Carlton JM, Kooij TWA, Berriman M, Florens L, Janssen CS, Pain A, Christophides GK et al (2005) A comprehensive survey of the Plasmodium life cycle by genomic, transcriptomic, and proteomic analyses. Science 307:82–86

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Harley CB (1991) Telomeric loss: mitotic clock or genetic time bomb? Mutat Res 256:271–282

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Khan A, Ulrike B, Kelly KA, Adlem E, Brooks K, Simmonds M, Mungall K, Quail MA, Arrowsmith C, Chillingworth T et al (2006) Common inheritance of chromosome Ia associated with clonal expansion of Toxoplasma gondii. Genome Res 16:1119–1125

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Kumar S, Tamura K, Nei M (2004) MEGA3: integrated software for molecular evolutionary genetics analysis and sequence alignment. Brief Bioinform 5:150–163

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Kuramoto M, Ohsumi K, Kishimoto T, Ishikawa F (2001) Identification and analysis of the Xenopus TERT gene that encodes the catalytic subunit of telomerase. Gene 277:101–110

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Lai CK, Mitchell JR, Collins K (2001) RNA binding domain of telomerase reverse transcriptase. Mol Cell Biol 21:990–1000

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Lingner J, Hughes TR, Shevchenko A, Mann M, Lundblad V, Cech TR (1997) Reverse transcriptase motifs in the catalytic subunit of telomerase. Science 276:561–567

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Malik HS, Burke WD, Eickbush TH (2000) Putative telomerase catalytic subunits from Giardia lamblia and Caenorhabditis elegans. Gene 251:101–108

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Meier B, Clejan I, Liu Y, Lowden M, Gartner A et al (2006) trt-1 is the Caenorhabditis elegans catalytic subunit of telomerase. PLoS Genet 2(2):e18

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Moriarty TJ, Marie-Egyptienne DT, Autexier C (2004) Functional organization of repeat addition processivity and DNA synthesis determinants in the human telomerase multimer. Mol Cell Biol 24:3720–3733

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Morrison HG, McArthur AG, Gillin FD, Aley SB, Adam RD, Olsen GJ, Best AA, Cande WZ, Chen F, Cipriano MJ et al (2007) Genomic minimalism in the early diverging intestinal parasite Giardia lamblia. Science 317:1921–1926

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Nakamura TM, Morin GB, Chapman KB, Weinrich SL, Andrews WH, Lingner J, Harley CB, Cech TR (1997) Telomerase catalytic subunit homologs from fission yeast and human. Science 277:955–959

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Nasir L, Gault E, Campbell S, Veeramalai M, Gilbert D, McFarlane R, Munro A, Argyle DJ (2004) Isolation and expression of the reverse transcriptase component of the Canis familiaris telomerase ribonucleoprotein (dogTERT). Gene 336:105–113

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Oguchi K, Liu H, Tamura K, Takahashi H (1999) Molecular cloning and characterization of AtTERT, a telomerase reverse transcriptase homolog in Arabidopsis thaliana. FEBS Lett 457:465–469

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Pain A, Renauld H, Berriman M, Murphy L, Yeats CA, Weir W, Kerhornou A, Aslett M, Bishop R, Bouchier C et al (2005) Genome of the host-cell transforming parasite Theileria annulata compared with T. parva. Science 309:131–133

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Saitou N, Nei M (1987) The neighbor-joining method: a new method for reconstructing phylogenetic trees. Mol Biol Evol 4:406–425

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Xia J, Peng Y, Mian IS, Lue NF (2000) Identification of functionally important domains in the N-terminal region of telomerase reverse transcriptase. Mol Cell Biol 20:5196–5207

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Xu P, Widmer G, Wang Y, Ozaki LS, Alves JM, Serrano MG, Puiu D, Manque P, Akiyoshi D, Mackey AJ et al (2004) The genome of Cryptosporidium hominis. Nature 431:1107–1112

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Yang G, Li J, Zhang X, Zhao Q, Gong P, Ren B et al (2010) Eimeria tenella: cloning and characterization of telomerase reverse transcriptase gene. Exp Parasitol 124(4):380–385

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Zakian VA (1995) Telomeres: beginning to understand the end. Science 270(5242):1601–1607

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation (NSFC) of the People's Republic of China (Grant nos. 30671580 and 30170696) and supported by grants from Jilin Provincial Science and Technology Department (Grant nos. 2003055025 and 20106044) and the Ministry of Chinese Science and Technology Department (Grant nos. 2006CB910505 and 2010CB530004).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Animal Science and Veterinary Medicine, Jilin University, 5333 Xi’an Road, Changchun, 130062, China

    Yanan Cai, Yongxing Ai, Jianhua Li, Pengtao Gong, Qiuyue Wang, Honglie Hou, Guocai Zhang, Lingdan Li, Ju Yang, He Li, Jun Zheng, Shuhong Li & Xichen Zhang

  2. College of Animal Science and Technology, Jilin Agricultural University, 2888 Xincheng Street, Changchun, 130118, China

    Quan Zhao & Guilian Yang

Authors
  1. Yanan Cai
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Yongxing Ai
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Quan Zhao
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Jianhua Li
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Guilian Yang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Pengtao Gong
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Qiuyue Wang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. Honglie Hou
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  9. Guocai Zhang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  10. Lingdan Li
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  11. Ju Yang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  12. He Li
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  13. Jun Zheng
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  14. Shuhong Li
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  15. Xichen Zhang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Jianhua Li or Xichen Zhang.

Additional information

Yanan Cai and Yongxing Ai contributed equally to this study.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Cai, Y., Ai, Y., Zhao, Q. et al. Cloning and characterization of telomerase reverse transcriptase gene in Trichinella spiralis . Parasitol Res 110, 411–417 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-011-2506-1

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-011-2506-1

Keywords

Search

Navigation