Telomere shortening rate predicts species life span.

• Published in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
• Main Authors: Whittemore, Kurt, Vera, Elsa, Martínez-Nevado, Eva, Sanpera, Carola, Blasco, MA
• Other Authors: Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad (España), Comunidad de Madrid (España), Botín Foundation, World Cancer Research Fund International
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: National Academy of Sciences 2019
• Subjects: Telomere Shortening; Animals; Bottle-Nosed Dolphin; Cellular Senescence; Charadriiformes; Elephants; Falconiformes; Goats; Humans; Longevity; Mice; Regression Analysis; Reindeer; Species Specificity; Telomere; Rangifer tarandus
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12105/18535; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1902452116

Telomere shortening to a critical length can trigger aging and shorter life spans in mice and humans by a mechanism that involves induction of a persistent DNA damage response at chromosome ends and loss of cellular viability. However, whether telomere length is a universal determinant of species longevity is not known. To determine whether telomere shortening can be a single parameter to predict species longevities, here we measured in parallel the telomere length of a wide variety of species (birds and mammals) with very different life spans and body sizes, including mouse (Mus musculus), goat (Capra hircus), Audouin's gull (Larus audouinii), reindeer (Rangifer tarandus), griffon vulture (Gyps fulvus), bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus), American flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber), and Sumatran elephant (Elephas maximus sumatranus). We found that the telomere shortening rate, but not the initial telomere length alone, is a powerful predictor of species life span. These results support the notion that critical telomere shortening and the consequent onset of telomeric DNA damage and cellular senescence are a general determinant of species life span. We thank the Madrid Zoo for all of their help and for providing the blood samples for a variety of species. We also thank Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Oncologicas (CNIO) (or "Spanish National Cancer Research Centre" in Madrid, Spain) confocal microscope core and animal facility, particularly Rosa Serrano, for all of their help and assistance, as well as the CNIO Bioinformatics Department, particularly Kevin Troule Lozano, for assistance with analysis. We thank the personnel from the Ebro Delta Natural Park and M. Garcia-Tarrason for sampling and facilities during fieldwork. We also thank Dr. Dani Oro (Centre d'Estudis Avancats de Blanes-Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas) for help with the ages of ringed Audouin's gulls. Partial funding was obtained from Project CGL2016-80963-R (Ministerio Economia, Industria y Competividad). We also thank ...