Lgr5 Intestinal Stem Cells Have High Telomerase Activity and Randomly Segregate Their Chromosomes

Overview

Journal EMBO J

Specialties Biotechnology
Molecular Biology

Date 2011 Feb 8

PMID 21297579

Citations 117

Authors

Arnout G Schepers

Robert Vries

Maaike van den Born

Marc van de Wetering

Hans Clevers

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Somatic cells have been proposed to be limited in the number of cell divisions they can undergo. This is thought to be a mechanism by which stem cells retain their integrity preventing disease. However, we have recently discovered intestinal crypt stem cells that persist for the lifetime of a mouse, yet divide every day. We now demonstrate biochemically that primary isolated Lgr5+ve stem cells contain significant telomerase activity. Telomerase activity rapidly decreases in the undifferentiated progeny of these stem cells and is entirely lost in differentiated villus cells. Conversely, asymmetric segregation of chromosomes has been proposed as a mechanism for stem cells to protect their genomes against damage. We determined the average cell cycle length of Lgr5+ve stem cells at 21.5 h and find that Lgr5+ve intestinal stem cells randomly segregate newly synthesized DNA strands, opposing the 'immortal strand' hypothesis.

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