Effect of telomere length on telomeric gene expression

Telomeres gradually shorten as human somatic cells divide and a correlation has been observed between the average telomere length and cell senescence. It has been proposed that the genes responsible for cell senescence are located near the telomere and are activated when telomere length reaches a critical point. This is consistent with evidence from Saccharomyces cerevisiae, in which genes are regulated differently depending on their distance from the telomere. We investigated the possibility that differential gene expression is conferred by telomere length in human cells. A plasmid containing the neomycin phosphotransferase (neo) gene was transfected into the SV40-transformed human fibroblast cell line LM217. In one transfectant the plasmid was integrated at the telomere of chromosome 13. Subclones of this cell line that had various lengths of telomeric repeat sequences on the end of this chromosome were isolated. No effect on neo gene expression was found when the length of the telomere varied between 25 and 0.5 kb, as demonstrated by colony forming ability, growth rates and RNA blot analysis. These results therefore suggest that putative chromatin structural differences conferred by telomere length do not affect the expression of genes located near telomeres.