'The recent publication of the genomes of over 1000 S. cerevisiae strains enabled us to explore telomere DNA length variation at an unprecedented scale. Here, we developed a bioinformatic pipeline (YeaISTY) to estimate telomere DNA length from whole-genome-sequences and applied it to the sequenced S. cerevisiae collection. Our results revealed broad natural telomere DNA length variation among the isolates. Notably, telomere DNA length is shorter in those derived from wild rather than domesticated environments.'
This conversation sparked one of my long standing interests, still unresolved (although thought to be by many), of *WHAT IS THE ADAPTIVE EVOLUTIONARY SECTABLE TRAIT FOR TELOMERE LENGTH IN NATURE*. The trend, so far, goes like this: within species: shorter telomeres - longer lived individuals. HOWEVER, between species: shorter telomeres - longer lived species.
For references, see the huge endeavor in mammalian species from Nuno Gomes PMID: 21518243). My own work in collaboration with Martin Reichard in 2021 (PMID: 34826177) using closely related wild derived African killifish showed the same trend.
The paper by my colleague and friend at the IRCAN, Gianni Liti does suggest that, like in domestication of mice, breeding of closely related yeast strains in domestication led to longer telomeres. I am sure we are touching the nature’s value for their length!… but this will go far away from the current ideas of telomere shortening restraining cancer and other diseases in young animals…
So, what’s the THM, are telomeres important or not?
@domhenri… try and live without them… oh yes, you can’t. 🙂 if you mean important for aging, the answer is: it depends on the species.
@miguelgf I think there are a pair of interesting possibilities (among many, of course) a hazy one, that somehow inbreeding places demands on chromosomal stability that require longer telomeres for some odd reason or a null scenario where in the high nutrient/low risk environment of long term lab selection/domestication there is relaxed selection against the costs of maintaining longer telomeres (this should be relatively easy to test by experimental evolution of inbred strains under nutrient rich and nutrient poor conditions - and would be cool if it related to lifespan)
Hi guys, curious way to start a new year, talking about lifespan and longevity, and trying to guess God’s plan for telomeres.
Of course, nutrient rich environment helps, in particular if accompanied by French red wine (to activate your sirtuins and promote your transgenerational inheritance).
Maybe so… but the thing of telomere length is that is presents a slippery trait… you just need long enough to successfully reproduce (what ever that means between yeast and bigger animals). Longer telomeres, currently are thought be deleterious as they are sources of recombination and oxidative damage. Longer telomeres only protect from genomic instability when telomerase is restrained (somatic tissues) so… yeasts are off the game. If not, telomerase will fix short telomeres (as normal).
CORRECTION: The trend, so far, goes like this: within species: shorter telomeres - shorter lived individuals. HOWEVER, between species: shorter telomeres - longer lived species.
As @miguelgf pointed out to me years ago, this trend in telomere length variation is also seen between wild populations and lab mice
"We compared telomere length distributions in a number of inbred and outbred established mouse strains with those of strains recently derived from wild mice. Telomere length was considerably shorter in wild-derived strains than in the established strains."
https://academic.oup.com/nar/article/28/22/4474/2383801