short telomeres in hatchling snakes erythrocyte telomere dynamics and longevity in tropical pythons短的端粒在人工孵化的蛇在热带蟒蛇红细胞端粒动力学和长寿.pdfVIP

Short Telomeres in Hatchling Snakes: Erythrocyte Telomere Dynamics and Longevity in Tropical Pythons Beata Ujvari1,2, Thomas Madsen1,3,4* 1 School of Biological Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia, 2 Evolutionary Biology Unit, Australian Museum, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 3 Department of Animal Ecology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden, 4 Animal Ecology Research Group, Hungarian Academy of Science, Hungarian Natural History Museum, Budapest, Hungary Abstract Background: Telomere length (TL) has been found to be associated with life span in birds and humans. However, other studies have demonstrated that TL does not affect survival among old humans. Furthermore, replicative senescence has been shown to be induced by changes in the protected status of the telomeres rather than the loss of TL. In the present study we explore whether age- and sex-specific telomere dynamics affect life span in a long-lived snake, the water python (Liasis fuscus). Methodology/Principal Findings: Erythrocyte TL was measured using the Telo TAGGG TL Assay Kit (Roche). In contrast to other vertebrates, TL of hatchling pythons was significantly shorter than that of older snakes. However, during their first year of life hatchling TL increased substantially. While TL of older snakes decreased with age, we did not observe any correlation between TL and age in cross-sectional sampling. In older snakes, female TL was longer than that of males. When using recapture as a proxy for survival, our results do not support that longer telomeres resulted in an increased water python survival/longevity. Conclusions/Significance: In fish high telomerase activity has been observed in somatic cells exhibiting high proliferation rates. Hatchling pythons show similar high somatic cell proliferation rates. Thus, the increase in TL of this group may have been caused