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Updated: Aug 26, 2026

Telomere Length and Telomerase Activity; A Yin and Yang of Cell Senescence
Published on: May 22, 2013
Telomere length measurement by fluorescence in situ hybridization and flow cytometry
Veena Kapoor1, William G Telford
1Experimental Transplantation and Immunology Branch, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA.
Abstract:
Telomere length is an important measure of cellular differentiation and progression to senescence. Flow cytometric assays for measuring telomere length have become an important adjunct to more laborious Southern blotting methods; telomere length can be estimated with considerable accuracy in small numbers of individual cells by flow cytometry, and can be measured in cell population subsets with simultaneous fluorescent immunophenotyping. In this chapter, we describe the standard flow cytometric assay for measuring telomere length, including the incorporation of fluorochrome-conjugated antibody immunolabeling for measurement in cell subsets.

