Oh Bong-Kyeong, Keo Ponnarath, Bae Jaeman, Ko Jung Hwa, Choi Joong Sub
Institute of Medical Science, Hanyang University College of Medicine, Seoul 133-791, Republic of Korea.
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Hallym University Kangdong Sacred Heart Hospital, Seoul 05355, Republic of Korea.
Int J Mol Med. 2017 Jun;39(6):1597-1604. doi: 10.3892/ijmm.2017.2956. Epub 2017 Apr 20.
Telomeres are transcribed into long non-coding RNA, referred to as telomeric repeat-containing RNA (TERRA), which plays important roles in maintaining telomere integrity and heterochromatin formation. TERRA has been well characterized in HeLa cells, a type of cervical cancer cell. However, TERRA abundance and stability have not been examined in other cervical cancer cells, at least to the best of our knowledge. Thus, in this study, we measured TERRA levels and stability, as well as telomere length in 6 cervical cancer cell lines, HeLa, SiHa, CaSki, HeLa S3, C-33A and SNU-17. We also examined the association between the TERRA level and its stability and telomere length. We found that the TERRA level was several fold greater in the SiHa, CaSki, HeLa S3, C-33A and SNU-17 cells, than in the HeLa cells. An RNA stability assay of actinomycin D-treated cells revealed that TERRA had a short half-life of ~4 h in HeLa cells, which was consistent with previous studies, but was more stable with a longer half-life (>8 h) in the other 5 cell lines. Telomere length varied from 4 to 9 kb in the cells and did not correlate significantly with the TERRA level. On the whole, our data indicate that TERRA abundance and stability vary between different types of cervical cancer cells. TERRA degrades rapidly in HeLa cells, but is maintained stably in other cervical cancer cells that accumulate higher levels of TERRA. TERRA abundance is associated with the stability of RNA in cervical cancer cells, but is unlikely associated with telomere length.
端粒被转录成长链非编码RNA，称为端粒重复序列RNA（TERRA），它在维持端粒完整性和异染色质形成中发挥重要作用。TERRA在宫颈癌细胞系HeLa细胞中已得到充分表征。然而，至少据我们所知，尚未在其他宫颈癌细胞中检测TERRA的丰度和稳定性。因此，在本研究中，我们测量了6种宫颈癌细胞系HeLa、SiHa、CaSki、HeLa S3、C-33A和SNU-17中的TERRA水平、稳定性以及端粒长度。我们还研究了TERRA水平与其稳定性和端粒长度之间的关联。我们发现，SiHa、CaSki、HeLa S3、C-33A和SNU-17细胞中的TERRA水平比HeLa细胞中的高几倍。对放线菌素D处理的细胞进行的RNA稳定性分析表明，TERRA在HeLa细胞中的半衰期约为4小时，这与先前的研究一致，但在其他5种细胞系中更稳定，半衰期更长（>8小时）。细胞中的端粒长度在4至9 kb之间变化，与TERRA水平无显著相关性。总体而言，我们的数据表明，不同类型的宫颈癌细胞中TERRA的丰度和稳定性存在差异。TERRA在HeLa细胞中迅速降解，但在积累较高水平TERRA的其他宫颈癌细胞中稳定维持。TERRA丰度与宫颈癌细胞中RNA的稳定性相关，但不太可能与端粒长度相关。
